Work Deeply: Eliminate Distractions

Conquer Bigger Projects in Less Time

Hey AI Explorer,

Welcome to the latest edition of your weekly newsletter “Solve with AI”.

This week has been crazy. First it was the storm and then back-to-back mission critical projects. If I pair that with family commitments, personal time, workout, and travel then it is become a perfect recipe for disaster.

You and I live in a crazy world. Although I am super thankful that we live in a world that is far more luxurious and abundance than our not so far ancestors. It keeps us on our toe.

Can you imagine, just 100 years ago significant part of the world lived without electricity?

We have power on the go from your cell phone batteries to fast cars.

The question that bothers me is why… why do we still struggle to live a fulfilling and stress-free life?

Maybe because we take too much on our shoulders or maybe because we try to commit to everyone.

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One thing you and I can agree is our world is filled with distractions.

Here are few distractions we come across daily:

1. Our cellphone with 24/7 access to news, social media, and content.

2. Constant streaming music in our cars, shopping malls, stores, restaurants. Trust me constant noise is a distraction for our mind.

3. Television and streaming media with 24/7 binge worthy content.

4. High pressure work environment with constant meetings, reminders, and deadlines.

5. Low pitched sound originating from our home appliances and devices.

6. High pitched sound from movie theaters, concerts, traffic, and airport announcements.

7. Talkative family members.

Don’t get me wrong.

I am not saying we should leave everything and find a home on a deserted island (it might not be a bad idea if there are no storms :))

What I mean is we need to strive hard to eliminate distractions that deprives us from truly enjoying our lives and more important getting important thing done.

This is the core concept of the research done by Cal Newport and he has shared his work in his book “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World”.

Let’s dive deeper into the frameworks, principles and prompts based on Dan’s book.

Work Deeply

Completing major projects and tasks requires discipline and dedication. You need to develop the ability to focus intensely on the project without distraction.

How?

By creating an environment and habits that support sustained concentration on demanding tasks.

It is easier said and done but by chunking time blocks for deep work is not impossible.

You can find time during the day when you are not distracted by anything or anyone. Either early morning or middle of the day or late night.

Or simply zone out with your noise cancellation headphones for few hours of deep work. I do this even if my folks are around the house during summer vacation.

Accept and Cherish Boredom

Daddy, I am bored!

This is what I constantly here from my Gen Z and Alpha kids. Our kids are born with a distractive mindset. They find it extremely difficult to do nothing. If they are not watching or hearing something on a device their lives feel empty.

Why?

Even before they are born, we program them to be device ready. A family expecting new child spends significantly more time on devices because of free time during paternity or maternity leave.

Look, your family maybe different and you may have made deliberate attempts to stay device free during that time. Kudos to you if you did that.

However, based on my personal and experience of people around me this is the reality.

We are not programmed to accept emptiness or boredom, or I should say we have been reprogrammed to not accept it.

I remember when I was a kid, I only had access to one device i.e. TV but only for limited hours of the day. We generally went out to play with other kids during summer.

What we need to do is reverse program our brain to accept and cherish boredom. This helps resist the urge for constant stimulation and enhances our ability to focus.

One way to do that is to find an old school digital alarm on Amazon and use that for 30 minutes of deep meditation.

Another way to do that is to follow the work of Colin O'Brady mentioned in his book 12 Hour Walk.

The core concept of 12 Hour Walk is to isolate yourself for 12 hours and just keep walking. You don’t need to go to a remote area to do your 12-hour walk. You can pick a neighborhood park or not so busy crime free area of your city.

Colin has also launched an app the helps you manage and track your 12-hour walks.

You can plan your walks once a quarter on a Sunday.

If 12 hour is too much, then you can start with an hour walk and increase as needed.

Strive to commit time to embrace boredom.

Reduce Social Media

I am being more generous here by recommending reducing social media. Cal Newman wants us to quit social media completely.

Social is intertwined in our lives. First it was Facebook, then Twitter then Instagram and Tiktok. It is a never-ending barrage of distractions, and I can bet you tomorrow it will be something else.

Companies that have developed these apps already know how to keep you distracted with a new app every few months.

I reduce my social media access by stopping all notifications. None of my social media apps have notifications. In fact, I have stopped notifications from all by 8 apps on my phone.

This keeps me away from unnecessary access to my social apps.

Another way to do that is to use ChatGPT and perform cost benefit analysis of your social media usage.

First, download a usage tracking app on your phone. I use Stayfree on my Android and Apple user can download Rescue Time.

Use the app for at least 3-4 days to track your metrics so you can use the prompt below in ChatGPT to do the cost benefit analysis.

Here is the detailed prompt.