Going Deep

Applying Cal Newport’s Deep Work Principles to Life as a Senior Executive

My first blog post as a self-employed consultant is a retrospective. I read Cal Newport’s “Deep Work” with the intention of applying its principles to my future working life. But as I read it, in an intensive 24-hour period - deep concentration, you see - I realised how useful the suggestions

would have been for my past life as a senior executive. As General Counsel of a major financial services institution (a commodities exchange), with a large team to manage and a never-ending series of problems to solve, I faced multiple demands on my time. The temptations to “go-shallow” - to be constantly distracted by emails, status updates, unnecessary meetings, and even social media and the news - were legion. So if I had my time again, what would I do differently? How would I apply Newport’s “Deep Work” ideas to life as a senior executive?

What is Deep Work and Why is it Important?

Firstly, an explanation for those who haven’t read the book. The ability to work “deep” can be summarised in essence as concentration with relentless focus on a particular topic or problem. This skill is becoming increasingly scarce in society, where most people work “shallow” (relatively simple tasks, often distracted by email, social media and other “productivity tools”). At the same time, the ability to work deep is becoming increasingly valuable, as increased connectivity means the very best thrive and others struggle.

High quality work produced = (time spent) x (intensity of focus). So we should maximise the intensity of work to maximise the results per unit of time spent working. Multitasking leaves a residue of attention on one task as you switch to the next and therefore impairs performance. A quick check of emails every ten minutes is destructive to the performance of hard tasks, such as (in my line of work) writing a strategy document or a memo of advice for the board, or considering advice from external counsel. Creating an environment for deep work is not straightforward, and requires effort, because the temptations of the shallow are legion. Willpower alone is insufficient - strategies (see below) are also required.

There are certain categories of work where “non-depth” is highly valued in our society. Certain high level corporate officers - CEOs for example - are effectively highly tuned decision-engines who make many decisions per day and four hours of deep work would be an unproductive use of their time. But for most of us, even other non-CEO members of the C-suite, connectivity is far less important than we imagined. Busyness is not a substitute for productivity, even if it can be easier to look productive in modern workplaces by constantly answering emails, attending meetings, tweeting etc

Skilful management of attention is the sine qua non of a good, happy, well-lived life. A life not rooted in anxiety or fear, but in productivity and joy. Your world is the outcome of what you pay attention to. If you focus deep, there is no attention left to worry - in a negative, anxiety-loop way - about problems.

How could more Deep Work help a Senior Executive?

It is very easy in the C-suite to be reactive rather than pro-active, particularly as the company’s most senior lawyer. You are constantly brought problems to be fixed, crises arise unbidden, board members need advice, other senior executives need status updates on the progression of projects or cases. In this way, time for deep strategic thinking gets pushed to the margins. I would have been even more effective if I had had more time to devote to questions such as:-

• How could I get my department to serve the business more effectively?

• What major productivity tools (a better document and case management system, a matter reporting system) could help, and how could they be implemented most efficiently?

• What are the macro risks which my organisation faces, and how can they be mitigated?

• What are my staffing and external counsel needs over the next 1-3-5 years and how can they be managed best?

• Are our rules, processes and legal frameworks as efficient as possible, and, if not, how could they be improved?

With email use so ubiquitous, and everyone expecting a response, it is so easy to become a slave to email. Every day we receive several hundred emails. Many in the business world (myself included) are proud of their ability to respond to these emails quickly, and to file them away into sub-folders diligently. Meetings too - our diaries become filled up with endless meetings during the working day. If twenty people attend a three hour meeting (common on a daily basis in places I have worked previously), that’s sixty hours of working time consumed, at huge cost to the business. With so many meetings in the regular working day, the time for emailing becomes squeezed to the peripheries of the day, and we have even less time to think strategically. This cannot be the most effective use of our time, so how do we solve the problem? Rather than rely on the business to fix the problem, there are strategies that each of us as individuals can employ. As Newport sets out, not only will they make us more productive, but they will also see us work fewer hours and be happier and more fulfilled.

Strategies - How to achieve More Deep Work as a Senior Executive

First of all, decide on a clear, unambiguous and ambitious goal for yourself and/or your team. This might be, for example, to become the team with the highest sales in the organisation, or to become the highest paid executive in the C-suite, or to become the next CEO. Then structure all your time and efforts to achieving this goal. Measure success (number of meetings, number of leads, number of instructions etc) and keep score. Create a cadence of accountability (weekly review and plan for work ahead).

Different professions lend themselves to different “deep-work” philosophies. Unlike, perhaps, some academics, a senior executive in the business world can’t afford to achieve a state of monastic isolation where she rejects, or at least radically minimises, all things shallow. It is unlikely to be practical even for her to schedule specific time each day for deep work, where she blocks out the shallow distractions. Therefore any time-blocking will need to be opportunistic (ie when the time presents itself). To assist with this, consider the following tools:

a. Start each day by rigorously planning and scheduling your day (alternatively, plan the next day at the end of the previous day, as part of your shutdown routine - see below). Do this yourself - don’t rely on a PA. Every minute of your day (work and leisure) should be accounted for. Divide the day into blocks - minimum half hours - and assign activities to the blocks (eg writing client memo; team lunch, dealing with emails etc). If the schedule gets disrupted through the day (eg the client memo takes longer than expected), revise the schedule at the first available opportunity.

b. Quantify the depth of work tasks, on the basis of the following question: how long in months would it take to train a recent college graduate to complete this task? If it’s tens or hundreds, then it’s a deeper task worthy of significant time expenditure; activities which require less time to train the hypothetical graduate are shallower and should be minimised, on the basis that their return on time investment is much thinner (even if sometimes they might feel productive). As a senior executive, delegation is essential - those who fail to delegate effectively cannot thrive.

c. Agree a “shallow work” budget (with your boss or yourself) - ie how much time should be allotted to shallow work? Generally Newport says it will be somewhere between 30 and 50 per cent. Aim for no more than four hours of deep work per day - most people don’t have the capacity for more than this - but acknowledge that sometimes it will be less.

d. Make a conscious effort to cut down on activities which generate shallow work, such as business travel, status update meetings, checking emails, social media etc. Constantly ask yourself, do I really need this meeting or this trip? Time spent travelling for work can be incredibly time consuming in terms of arranging and executing, and the time may well be spent better elsewhere. If the meeting isn’t necessary, reject it wherever possible. You may need to be brutal in this.

e. Reduce email. Consider process in emails to reduce traffic - eg not “shall we meet for a coffee?” but “let’s meet for coffee, here are some possible times and a place”. Be considerate of the time your open ended requests generate for others. Don’t just flick on a email to someone with a demand for their “thoughts”. When you receive an email, consider if you really need to respond, and by when. Just because your boss has sent an email at 9pm, that doesn’t mean they are expecting a response that night, or even necessarily the next day.

f. Be highly circumspect in use of all social media. Such network tools fragment our time and reduce our ability to concentrate. Adopt any tool only if its positive impacts substantially outweigh its negative impacts (so, for me for example, limited Linked In use has utility but Facebook and Twitter do not). Avoid “click bait” internet trawling (Reddit etc) altogether, and fill your leisure time with hobbies (reading, learning a new sport etc) which are structured in the same way as your deep work, including by blocking out specific, undistracted time to focus on them. Limit all email and social media use to a small number of dedicated “shallow” blocks per day.

g. Consider rituals to aid going deep - where and when you work (quiet and a lack of interruptions is essential), for how long (it shouldn’t be open-ended), bans on internet, email, WhatsApp etc whilst working deep, a coffee at the start etc). Your door does not always have to be open - indeed, this is highly disruptive to deep work.

h. At the end of the workday, shut down work completely - no idle check of emails or thinking about work at all. But before enforced shutdown, have a daily shutdown ritual (all open matters are either closed or transferred to tomorrow’s task list) to ensure nothing gets lost.

Finally, embrace boredom. Deep thinking requires practice, which can only come without distractions. Once your brain becomes accustomed to distraction online, it becomes very hard to shake the habit. So work hard to resist the temptation to give in to distraction. Instead, as suggested above, schedule the occasional break from focus, where you allow internet-browsing/WhatsApp checking etc. Think of it like mental calisthenics, training the mind the resist. Maintain the strategy of regulating internet use even when the workday is over. Practise productive meditation (attacking a precise problem & continually bringing your attention back to it when it wanders) when walking, at least 2-3 times per week.

To do all of the above requires intense discipline, and it will not be possible for everyone. It may be difficult to put into practice overnight. However, if there are certain elements that you can adopt straightaway, then do so. Further opportunities for utilising the Deep Work rules may present themselves as time goes by: for example, a change of job would be a fantastic opportunity to aim for significant overhaul of your working practices in line with the above, as would a management restructure or change of boss. I wish you luck!