For a while now, I have been wondering how to strike the right balance between shallow work like reading emails, answering instant messages, or following up with team members, and deep work like defining the roadmap for the next year, researching technical challenges, or writing technical design documents.

I read “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World” by Cal Newport about this challenge and how to approach it. Bruce Wang, director of engineering of API systems at Netflix, recommended it during his talk “The Pursuit of Impact for Engineering Teams” at the Elevate Winter Summit 2020 hosted by Plato.

Here is what I learned from the book:

In the first 100 pages, Cal Newport discusses the differences between deep and shallow work and how the latter became predominant since the advent of network tools, like e-mail, instant messaging, and social media networks. He lists many examples where successful people like former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, influential thinker Carl Jung, or writer J.K. Rowling integrated deep work into their work schedule to enable their outstanding accomplishments.

The second half 250 pages provide a toolset that helps incorporate different forms of deep work into one’s own work schedule. Cal Newport discusses extreme measures like quitting social media but also introduces simple practices to write more productive emails. This variety is necessary because deep work doesn’t apply to everyone in the same way. It depends on the role, personality, and type of profession which practices work best.

For me, the book connected many ideas and practices I had picked up in the past but never grew into a productive pattern. After reading the book, I integrated the following three methods into my regular work practice:

  • Schedule Every Minute of Your Day – The idea behind this practice is to purposely allocate all time in a work day to activities that matter. I personally schedule blocks of at least 30 minutes in my Google calendar for different activities through out my day. This allows to clearly define how much time is spent with shallow work. This schedule is still open for interruption and if that occurs the schedule for the day is adjusted accordingly.
  • Schedule Deep Work – Cal Newport provides different philosophies on how to schedule deep work. I started to allocate 90 minute blocks in work schedule that I keep free from distraction so that I can focus on a topic I defined before. During this time I turn off email, instant messaging, and reduce the usage of internet to research on the topic I’m working on.
  • Finish Your Work by Five Thirty – The commitment to a fixed schedule forces one to protect work time by ruthlessly prune shallow work to allow enough time for deep work. This is again a practice that encourages careful allocation of our most valuable resource “time”.

I have to admit that I’m not always able to fully follow these principles. If work needs to be finished, I still spend the extra hours to meet the deadline on the next day. However, in general, they help me avoid situations like that by consciously allocating my time for work that makes a difference.