One of the most popular ideas thrown around on the twitterbookagram goes something like this. “We all have the same 86,400 seconds in a day. How are you going to use yours?” I’ve heard/seen/read it a lot, and it makes sense. The idea calls for each of us to “invest” our 86,400 seconds rather than “spend” or “waste” them. I’m all in on that idea. I have to be, don’t I? I mean, my “One Word” for 2018 is Intentional. That’s the whole idea behind the 86,400 second mantra, right? Be intentional with the time that you are given.

Recently, I read Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport. It’s outstanding. The book has been out for about two and a half years, and in that time, I have heard a number of podcasters talk about it. For some reason, however, I just never picked it up. I finally pulled the trigger a couple weeks ago, and I am glad I did.

In the book Cal talks about “deep work” and how our ability to do more of it is one of the most valuable skills we can have in our rapidly changing economy. The problem is that we, for the most part, are terrible at it. We live in a constant state of distraction. I know I do. Every ding, buzz, banner, or little red dot on my iPhone haunts me until I check it, regardless of what else I am doing in the moment. Here’s an example…

About a month ago, I was reading a book on my iPad, and I remember getting frustrated because it was taking me so long to read it. I am a fairly strong reader, so it didn’t make any sense that it was taking me so long to read a book that I had already read once before. As I thought about it, it finally dawned on me what had been happening. My iPad’s settings were set to alert me when I received a text message or when certain things happened on Twitter. That day my notifications were blowing up, and every time I got one, I’d move out of my iBooks app and into Twitter/Messages/Facebook to see what was going on. Inevitably, I’d get caught scrolling for a few minutes before I got back to my book.

The other part of what was happening was all my fault. I have a habit of tweeting out quotes from the books that I read. There are some great nuggets of wisdom in these books, and I love sharing them. Well, when I read on my iPad, it becomes way too convenient to do that. I was constantly switching over to the Twitter app and tweeting out quotes. Then, you guessed it, I’d do a little scrolling through my feed to make sure I didn’t miss anything “important.”

In hindsight, it’s easy to see why it was taking so long to read that book. In fact, it’s actually harder to understand how I got through the book at all, given all of the distractions that I was dealing with (self-inflicted as they may have been).

According to the American Psychological Association, “shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40 percent of someone’s productive time.”

– Simon Sinek (Excerpt from “Leaders Eat Last“)

That quote from Leaders Eat Last explains exactly what was happening to me. Even worse, it explains what can sometimes happen to me at work. I have made the statement several times in the last year, “Man, I was really busy all day today, but I have no idea what I did.” Sinek also goes on in the book to cite research done by the University of California Irvine…

“When a worker is interrupted, it takes them around twenty-three minutes to return to their original task.”

23 MINUTES!?!?!? I read that, and I immediately thought about all of the distractions that take place during my normal work day. I probably receive somewhere between 50 and 100 emails on any given day. Add that to the students, teachers, and parents that may pop in or call with a question, and the number of “distractions” appears to be insurmountable. Without a plan in place, it can be very difficult to engage in deep, uninterrupted work.

So, what’s the answer?

Here are three things that I have started doing recently that have made a huge difference in my life in a very short amount of time.

• Turn off notifications – In Deep Work, Cal Newport suggested eliminating social media entirely. While he maintained that this is the best way to eliminate distractions, he conceded that ditching all social media might not be a great fit for everyone. I, for instance, have the responsibility of managing the social media accounts for my school. I also try to maintain this blog and interact with the people that read it. I cannot eliminate social media from my life. I decided that the next best thing was for me to eliminate all of my notifications, so that’s what I did. I turned off all of my notifications except for my text messages. Now, I control when I check my social media accounts, rather then the notifications controlling me. This one simple change has had an enormous impact on me. Almost immediately, I noticed a significant reduction in the amount of stress in my life. It has allowed me to be more present with my family in the evenings, and being “unplugged” has allowed my mind to rest, which has increased the quality of my sleep. If I could make one recommendation to everyone, this would be it. It has literally been a gamechanger for me. Try it. Once you get past the dopamine withdrawals (read Leaders Eat Last), you’ll come to appreciate the disconnection.

• Schedule time to check emails – This is huge. I could literally sit at my desk all day and write/respond to emails. That is not productive, and that is not the work I was hired to do in this leadership role. Education is a people business, and in order for me to be effective, I need to be out with the people. Over the last few weeks, I have tried to check my emails in intentional chunks of time, usually the beginning and end of each day. This has allowed me to get more done, and it has allowed me to be more available for the people who might need me. Granted, it is still summer time, so the level of busyness is considerably lower than it will be once school starts in two weeks. However, my plan for right now is to schedule 2-3 times each day to check my emails once school starts back up. I will check them right when I get to work and right before I leave for the day, and on most days, I will try to schedule a window in the middle of the day to look for anything that might be considered urgent. I know a lot of business/leadership gurus say you shouldn’t start your day with email, and I understand why they say that. However, I get to work about an hour and a half before our students do. If I can knock out my inbox before they get there, that allows me to get into classrooms and do the important work I was hired to do.
  • I should also mention right now, that although it doesn’t necessarily contribute to my ability to do deep work at work, I have also stopped checking my emails at home. This practice of not checking emails at home kind of fits into both of the things I just listed above. It has limited my distractions at home, and it has reduced my stress/anxiety/worry as well. If someone shoots me an email about an issue, there’s probably not much I can do about it from my home (other than worry about it), so I might as well wait until I see it at 7:30 the next morning when I actually have the ability to deal with the issue or collaborate with my team in order to come up with a solution. My phone is on, and I still receive text messages at night. If there is an urgent issue, I will get a phone call or a text message, and I will deal with it. I’m not going to go looking for stress by checking my email at 9:00 pm when I should be winding down and preparing for the deep, restful sleep that is going to allow me to be at my best the next day. It all works together.
• Stop tweeting while reading – That sounds dumb, but surely I’m not the only person that does this. Reading and learning is an important part of my life. I think it is a crucial part of doing deep work. and like I said above, I love tweeting out the things that speak to me in the books that I am reading. I am also appreciative of the other people in the Twitterverse that do the same thing. However, I have realized that it is a big distraction for me. It’s not the tweeting part that is the biggest distraction. It’s the mindless scrolling or the trail of Twitter notifications that end up costing me the most time. It has left me in a weird situation. How do I share what I am reading while still being able to read without going down the Twitter rabbit hole? Here’s the compromise that I have come up with. If I see a quote in a book that I want to share, I use the voice dictation feature in the Notes app on my phone. I say the quote into my phone, and then I get back to reading. When I decide it’s time to sit down and check my social media accounts, I make a point to share the best quotes by copying and pasting them into my posts. It’s still a little distraction when I read, but it’s a win for me in several ways. 1) I save time because voice dictation is so much faster than typing. 2) I don’t go down the rabbit hole of scrolling and engaging on social media when I should be reading. 3) I still get to share the thoughts that I want to share. 4) I end up having a permanent set of notes in my phone for the books that I read. So far, this has been a good system for me since I’ve made the switch.

Another thing that I would recommend for those times when you really need to do some uninterrupted, deep work is close your door. I’ve said this to a few of my friends, and they look at me like I just kicked a puppy. It really is ok to do it every now and then. I’m not saying keep your door closed all of the time. I almost never have my door closed. I am a big believer in having an “open-door” policy, BUT sometimes there are time-sensitive things that need to get done. When those moments come about, shut your door, and get to work. If your door is open 95% of the time, no one is going to get mad at you for closing your door to get some things done that other 5%.

Well, that went way longer than I expected, but I hope it was useful. I would highly recommend reading the two books I mentioned in this post, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport and Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t by Simon Sinek. They are both worth your time and effort. Deep Work will change your thoughts on distraction and prioritizing, and Leaders Eat Last will raise your capacity for effective leadership and increase your level of empathy for your co-workers and teammates.

I’d love to hear from you. What are some of the things you do to limit the distractions in your life when you need to do more “deep work?” Start a conversation in the comments section, or reach out on social media. I promise I’ll respond during my next scheduled “social media time.” 🙂

See you next time!