Getting started with deep work

Most of us spend our day constantly switching between tasks while being disrupted by notifications from our phones, email, and instant messaging apps like MS Teams or Slack. This ‘context switching’ has a cost on our ability to focus on the things that matter in our work.

Cal Newport, in his book Deep Work separates work into two categories, deep and shallow work:

Deep work: “Professional activity performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”
Cal Newport

Shallow work: “Non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create new value in the world and are easy to replicate.”
Cal Newport

You need to be intentional about how you spend the working day, or you will default towards shallow tasks at the expense of what matters. Newport argues that to be the best at what you do, you need to focus your time on as much deep work as you can manage first, and then use the rest of the day for shallow work such as responding to email, direct messages, and attending meetings.

“The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.”
CAl Newport

Most of us are so used to shallow and distracted work that we have, at best, forgotten and, at worst, never learnt how to truly focus on our work. Developing a deep work practise requires periods where we block out distractions and concentrate on high-value tasks.

Building a deep work habit

If you have a reasonably predictable schedule and can plan your week and day ahead of time, block out time for deep work to develop a regular habit.
Assign a task to each deep work block in your plan.
Schedule your shallow work, including checking email around this to protect deep work from distractions.
choose a comfortable workspace where you can minimise distractions
Turn off your phone, close your email and messaging apps, and mute notifications.
Set a timer for your desired duration and commit to concentrating only on your assigned task until the timer finishes.
Once complete, note down any distractions or anything that stopped you from concentrating on the task. Make an effort to prevent this from happening next time.

Start with 15 minutes of distraction-free focused work and gradually increase the time over several weeks till you can do 90 minutes of uninterrupted deep work.

Start here page added

I have now posted 125 times and felt it was time to add a ‘Start here’ page. Creating the page allowed me to look at my most read posts and look for a few favourites that have not had many views. I have included the list below but Click on the ‘Start here’ link at the top of the page to look at the full introductory content.

If you enjoy my blog or want to start a conversation about anything I write about, please contact me via Twitter: https://twitter.com/samueljtanner. I will respond to all messages.

On Learning Design

On Running:

On Strength and conditioning

The basics of learner analytics

Each time a student logs into your institutions Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), a new session is logged in its database. The summary of login information can be helpful to assess student engagement over time. Three metrics are beneficial:

Average session duration: The average time students are active on the VLE for each login.
Frequency: how often a student logs in over a given period, such as a week or month.
Recency: The duration since the last session on the VLE.

You can use the average session duration to assess if students are engaging longer with their online learning. This metric requires your VLE to accurately measure when the student is active and does not just have the VLE open in a tab while watching Youtube.com. Average session duration is beneficial at the course or module level to track the time students are on the VLE against the expected time and at the institution level to track progress from year to year.

The average frequency of sessions is a good marker for how engaged students are on a course. You may set expectations of how often a full-time student is supposed to log in, at least once per working day, for instance, and then you can track against this.

Identifying students at risk of dropping out of a course is crucial as they may need support. Tracking students who have not logged into the system for a set number of days, say five during term-time on a full-time course, will allow you to identify students who might need academic or pastoral help. The recency table will help you determine how long it has been since students last logged in and show the number that falls outside your expectations.

For these three metrics to be valid, you need to have trust in their accuracy; this includes the technical accuracy of how they are tracked and how it captures all the online activity a student might complete. Other metrics can help, but these are a great starting point.

The MBA Intervew

Most Executive MBA programmes are highly selective and use various tools, including an application form and interview, to pick the course’s best candidates. Admissions officers are generally interested in three things; are you going to complete the course, are you going to do well, and what do you add to the cohort.

Attrition rates can be as high as 23% for UK Masters degrees in some subject areas, and on average, 10% of MBA students will drop out before the end of the course. Many senior roles require an MBA as evidence that the applicant has well-rounded business knowledge that will allow them to lead large teams with significant budgets. If you are in a role where progression requires an MBA, then that is a good marker that you will complete. If not, you will need to provide evidence that you can commit to a long term commitment alongside your work.

Masters degrees are graded into three categories, Pass, Merit, and Distinction, with students required to get a minimum of 50% in assessments to get a Pass, 60-69% to get a Merit, and over 70% for a Distinction. A part of the national and global ranking of a course is determined by the percentage of students who graduate and what grade they achieve, so admissions offices can be highly selective to keep these statistics high. You need to show that you can work at a high level and produce academic writing.

What you add to the cohort is particularly important for an MBA, where discussion, peer work, and networking form a large part of the course and a significant selling point for applicants. The Admissions Officers need to know that you fit with the course’s ethos and that you have unique perspectives on topics that will be covered to add to academic conversations. Finally, it is important that after graduation, you will raise the prestige of the course and institution by achieving things of note. For an Executive MBA, you should have a clear idea of what you want to achieve professionally and what sets you apart from other applicants.

The interview

Your application form’s success is largely down to your experiences and achievements so far and is not something that you can quickly improve. However, the interview is a chance for you to provide context to your application, so it is essential to prepare. An Executive MBA is a significant commitment of time and money, so the interview is also an opportunity for you to ask questions to help you make your decision if the course is right for you.

The Admissions Officer will want to ask you questions about elements of your application, including details of your experience, your career goals, and how the course will help get you there. It is an excellent idea to do some reading about the course, and advisor you are meeting, past graduates, and come prepared to discuss personal and professional achievements. University cohorts and graduate opportunities are increasingly international, so it is essential to note your international experiences.

QS HE insights and rating organisation suggest some questions that you should prepare some answers for before the interview:

Why the EMBA and what led you to make the decision about attending business school at this time?
How will the EMBA assist you in achieving your short and long term goals?
What are you looking to get out of the program?
Tell us about your work experience and how an MBA will fit with plans for the future?

Final notes

Treat it like an important meeting and dress appropriately.
Know what makes you stand out from other applicants.
Have a clear idea of what you want to achieve in your professional career and why an MBA is necessary.
Do some brief research on the admissions officer you will meet to show your interest and commitment
Have some notes around:
- Your background
- Education
- Career history
- Goals and aspirations for the future
- Why this specific course is of interest to you
- Why a business degree

Weekly planning

If you have a job that requires you to complete work that can’t be completed in a single day, you need to write weekly plans. Spending time to plan how you will spend your week will allow you to get more done by identifying what you need to do and then moving your commitments around to make space. Daily planning for 5 minutes each morning using time-blocking is the best way to be productive. Still, most of us have projects that can last weeks or months; starting with a high-level weekly overview will help you make room for these daily plans, first dividing the work into smaller chunks and then moving around your commitments to fit these into your schedule. Weekly planning will also allow you to find time for your two hours of deliberate practice each day.

Build smart weekly plans. Use these plans to develop effective daily time-block schedules. Execute those daily schedules with intensity, and then when done for the day, shut down completely.
Cal Newport

Start with a blank A4 page and do a mind dump of everything you can think of that you need to get done. Not using a specific format provides flexibility for the challenges and specifics of the coming week. You might choose a chronological approach where you write the days of the week with some bullet points for each day to support time blocking, or you may take a thematic approach for weeks that are taken up by meetings and appointments. Planning using themes will allow you to fit tasks around when you have free time.

Do a weekly plan on the weekend or first thing Monday morning. I prefer Sunday afternoons after lunch at a coffee shop to keep focused on the task and get out of the house. It can take 30-60 minutes to do a brain dump, look through your calendar, review current projects in your planning system and possibly empty your email inbox. I like to write a short, three minute read, review of the week for my team as part of the process but this can take extra time.

It’s this combination of high-level weekly plans with detailed daily time-block schedules that unlocks the full potential of this productivity system. The Weekly/Daily approach is what allows you to move around obligations like pieces on a chessboard and construct configurations of your schedule that enable you to accomplish head-turning amounts of work, all while staying on top of the various small requests and tasks pulling at your attention.
Cal Newport

My one o’clock Sunday afternoon calendar prompt

The following text is in a recurring calendar event on Sundays at 1 PM. I go to my favourite local coffee shop, get a strong coffee, put my headphones on, and work through the steps.

Calendar event text:

Aim: Have all your time accounted for (including rest/relaxation/recovery time)

Step 1: Mind dump – tasks, ideas, and commitments.
Step 2: Review the previous week – write a three-minute summary and send it to the team.
Step 3: Unstructured plan for the week – write a plan.txt.
Step 4: review plan daily.

Ideas for weekly planning

Set weekly goals – one per role (husband, student etc.) and sharpening the saw goals (physical, mental, social, and spiritual).
Reoccuring time blocks – 1. sharpening the saw 2. daily planning.
Plan your big rocks – most important tasks – block them on the calendar.
Fill in the gaps from using the mind dump.

Gamification

I completed my degree part-time while working full-time in my early thirties. One of the first modules I took was Introduction to Economics, which had pre-calculus level maths as a prerequisite. I had taken an AS in mathematics at school ten years before but had not done anything since. I found Khan Academy on the internet and started to work through the knowledge map towards my goal. The site used rudimentary gaming principles, including rules; you used to need ten questions correct in a row to ‘master’ the skill. It also required you to set goals, provide feedback, and give rewards. I spent four to six intensive weeks relearning maths from the ground up and complete my economics module.

Gamification is the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts. It can also be defined as a set of activities and processes to solve problems by using or applying the characteristics of game elements.
Gamify.com

The three core elements of gamification:

Points as visual identifiers of progress and provide meaning and purpose
Badges display and reward achievement
Leaderboards present competitive placement as a sign of social status

Gamification in education attempts to add elements of fun into learning by making lessons into games. Games are motivating; sports were created to keep people motivated to stay fit and healthy, and Games like chess help people learn strategy. By making learning more fun, it can potentially become more engaging.

Kahoot is an excellent example of simple gamification in education. Kahoot is a multiple choice quiz tool that teachers can use in live sessions to use a leaderboard to motivate students. Students use their mobile phones to follow along with the teacher’s questions and are scored on the speed of their correct answers. A leaderboard is presented after each question showing the highest-scoring students self-assigned title providing a level of anonymity where needed.

Yu-kai Chou provides eight universal core drivers of gamification in the Octalysis model framework described in Actionable Gamification.

Meaning – the desire to feel that our actions have purpose
Accomplishment – The drive to achieve and overcome challenges
Empowerment – The desire to choose one’s own direction and try a variety of solutions to a problem
Ownership – The desire to own things and have possession
Social Influence – The drive to interact with, help, learn from, and compete with others
Scarcity – The drive of wanting things you can’t have
Unpredictability – The drive of wanting to know what will happen next, and…
Avoidance – The drive to avoid pain or negative consequences.

The UX knowledge base has a three-part series on gamification that is worth a read if you are interested in learning the basics:

Running. Getting into the flow

I don’t think I have ever experienced runners high, but I know that there are times during runs where everything clicks and running feels effortless. During these periods, all my muscles are relaxed, my whole body from my arms to my legs move together, my legs just turn over, and every movement feels like it is driving me forward. These times are few and far between, but they are what makes the training worth it.

I am two weeks into my running training for this year, and I have one goal; increase the frequency of this feeling. I assume that this flow state represents the most efficient and effective way to run and maximising the times when I feel this will make me faster. But the question is, what can I do to trigger this running sensation?

To improve my running flow, I perform pre-run dynamic stretching and post-run strides each time I run, short maximum effort hill sprints twice per week and one set of technique drills.

Pre-run warm-up routine

Before every run, I perform this short dynamic warm-up routine from @coachtommy.nrg on Instagram to get my legs moving:

10x Calf raises
10x Lunges
10x Squats (full range of motion)
10x Knee to chest
20x Leg swings on each side
30x Heel flicks

Technique Drills

Once per week, currently on a Friday lunchtime, I perform technique drills from Pete Magill’s Fast 5K to work on my form:

Skipping
High skipping
Long skipping
Flat-footed marching
High knees
Bounding
Quick feet
Quick hops
Butt Kicks

Each drill is performed for one repeat of 20 meters (on my driveway and down the side of my house), jog back, then stride the 20 meters, then walk back to the start for the next drill.

Very short, very steep, very fast hill sprints

Twice per week, I am performing hill sprints. I go to a steep hill (around the corner from my house) and run up it as fast as possible (maximal effort) for between 8-12 seconds. Walk down to recover and then repeat up to 10 times. Brad Hudson in Run Faster provides a progression:

Week 1: 1×8 sec hill sprint
Week 2: 2×8 sec hill sprint
Week 3: 3×8 sec hill sprint
Week 4: 4×8 sec hill sprint
Week 5: 5×8 sec hill sprint
Week 6: 6×8 sec hill sprint
Week 7: 7×8 sec hill sprint
Week 8: 8×8 sec hill sprint
Week 9: 10×8 sec hill sprint
Week 10: 8×10 sec hill sprint
Week 11: 10×10 sec hill sprint
Week 12: 10×10 sec hill sprint
Week 13: 8×10 sec hill sprint
Week 14: 5×10 sec hill sprint

Post-run strides

Strides are short, fast runs of around 10-20 seconds with at least 40 seconds of light running between to recover. I have started to add them to the end of each run down a wide ally near my house. I run for 20 seconds and then jog back to the start. Jess Tonn, a seven-time All-American at Stanford, has built up to doing six to 10 of them nearly every day, often logging more than 50 post-run strides in a week. I am running four days per week and follow a progression similar to the hill sprints for each run:

Week 1: 2x 20-second stride
Week 2: 3x 20-second stride
Week 3: 4x 20-second stride
Week 4: 5x 20-second stride
Week 5: 6x 20-second stride
Week 6: 7x 20-second stride
Week 7: 8x 20-second stride
Week 8: 10x 20-second stride
Week 9: 8x 25-second stride
Week 10: 10x 25-second stride
Week 11: 10x 25-second stride
Week 12: 8x 25-second stride
Week 13: 5x 25-second stride

Polarised training

Polarised training (POL) describes an approach to endurance programming where around a small proportion of the training volume is High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). The rest of the training is at low intensity. The aim is to make the high-intensity intervals as hard as possible and then make the rest easy using a power cap of around 72% of Functional Threshold Power.

A 2014 study by Stöggl and Sperlich published in Frontiers of Physiology saw a 12% increase in V02Max and an 8% increase in Threshold Power following a nine-week 11 hour per week polarised plan in well-trained athletes. The programme involved three three-week blocks made up of two intense weeks and one recovery week. The intense weeks included two 60 minute High-Intensity Interval Sessions (HIIT), two 120-180 minute low-intensity sessions with 6-8x 5 second maximal sprints, each separated by 20 minutes, and two 90 minute low-intensity sessions. The recovery week included only one of each of the three sessions separated by a rest day.

The HIIT sessions in the study involved a warm-up followed by four intervals of four minutes at 90-95% of maximal heart rate. Later studies have shown that four intervals of 8 minutes or 30/15 workouts are more effective at increasing cycling performance and could be used instead. Ash Beech, who achieved an FTP of 5w/kg as an amateur cyclist, suggests in his book Blood Sport that you could increase the HIIT workouts to three per week, each followed by a low-intensity session the following day. One or all of the HIIT sessions could be replaced by Zwift races if all the training is indoors to ensure the intensity is high. Dr Martin Bonnevie-Svendsen suggests the total volume could be reduced from eleven hours by reducing the frequency of the low-intensity workouts.

Creating a Polarised plan

Work in three-week blocks with two intense weeks followed by a recovery week
Schedule 2-3 HIIT workouts in the intense weeks and one HIIT workout in the recovery week
For the HIIT workouts, use:
1. Four sets of eight minutes at 102-107% of FTP
2. 30/15 format at 120-140% of FTP
3. Zwift races
For the low-intensity workouts, aim for one to two 120-180 minute low-intensity workouts with 6-8 5 second sprints and one to two 90 minute low-intensity workouts in the intense weeks and one of each in the recovery week.
Perform an FTP test every nine weeks in a recovery week in place of the HIIT workout.
Plan in three-week blocks based on your performance and how you feel at the end of the recovery week. Frequent planning will add variety to your training and keep your routine interesting.

Solving problems

Problem-solving can be explained in four simple steps:

Define the problem
Generate multiple solutions
Evaluate these possible solutions and select the best fit
Implement the solution and gather feedback on its effectiveness

All design and development methodologies, from software engineering to city building, follow these four steps. The QS Global Graduate Skills Gap in the 21st Century employment survey placed problem-solving as the number one skill missing from graduates in the workplace. If you can get really good at performing each one and put them together in order, you will be effective in most jobs.

Priorities: The Eisenhower Matrix

The first rule of productivity is to have all your tasks written down on a todo list. The second rule must then be to order that list. The Urgent-Important Matrix is a tool to decide what you work on by plotting each task on a grid based on its urgency and importance. The matrix is named after US President Dwight Eisenhower, who developed the Eisenhower Principle to help him make decisions as an Army General and then as a President.

Eisenhower’s Urgent/Important Principle: “I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Important: Of great significance or value.
Oxford Languages

Urgent: Requiring immediate action or attention.
Oxford Languages

For each task, you will assess if it is important and if it is urgent. Once the tasks have been assessed, they will sit in one of four categories:

Important and Urgent
Important but Less urgent
Less important but Urgent
Less important and Less urgent

You can then use these categories to allocate what you need to do with each task.

Do first
Schedule
Delegate
Don’t do

Use the Eisenhower Matrix in Office 356

In most todo apps, such as Microsoft To Do, you can create categories and assign them to tasks. You will first have to set up your categories; Microsoft suggests the following:

Urgent
Important
For later
Blocked
Needs focus time
15_minutes

Next, you need to add categories to each task by selecting “category” and choosing from one or more of the categories you created. The categories will then appear under each task.