Be very cautious with some of these approaches in a corporate environment. Shallow work can be much easier to measure than deep work. It’s easy to be burned if you push the “monastic” approach too hard and neglect the shallow
The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill
111–120 of 202 posts
Re: The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for pointing to her Twitter account. Also good to know that she agrees we are trash bros[1]. We can still learn from people who despise us. [1] https://twitter.com/AdrienneCohea/status/1000463172581580800...
The tweet that you have linked to is a response to the author, and not one by the author themselves.
She has meanwhile deleted her reply that showed consent with the cited tweet. I have a screenshot but that would prove nothing to you.
Actually, I’m quite happy with the outcome, I paid a little bit of karma for somebody to reconsider her actions.
Re: The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always just figured it's the "oil change" problem. The day after the oil change interval is up that you skipped, all the trucks are still running great and it feels like you just saved a bunch of money... It can be very difficult for a bean counter with a spreadsheet to connect the extra broken down trucks at the end of the year to the oil changes that were skipped in February. Every open office I've ever been in w…
I don’t buy the argument that bean counters are unable to account for vaguer aspects of productivity loss. For one, bigger corporations invest huge amounts of money into productivity research and take the topic very seriously. They aren’t unsophisticated or naive and corporations will really study the internal incentives they create for cost cutting, to make sure they aren’t mistakenly cutting costs that actually lea…
Not all open spaces are created equal. If a bunch of the square footage is allocated to non-work purposes (entertainment, artwork, airy high ceilings, food, staff services, etc) then reducing cost is NOT the primary goal. But in most IT shops, where cost cutting by management through reducing IT's physical footprint is seen as a major win to trimming the budget (wasted) on IT, the savings isn't a mere 9% but more like 75%.
For example, I work at Merck & Co, where management has decided not only to move all of IT into much smaller open spaces, but at my site, they've decided that only 200 chairs are now needed to house the 600 staff. Thus the intended savings due to downspacing is FAR greater than 9%.
Since I can't believe Merck's management is unique in its enthusiasm for human bin packing, a small number like 9% likely applies only to startups in high rent districts where 'open space' truly is a design concept that implies more is sought than just physical space minimization.
Re: The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill
#114" dedicate a few consecutive days (like weekends, or a Sunday, for example)" - who's parenting the kids? Note that about 86% of adults end up having kids.
Shift systems end up handling this. Heck, a lot of parents even have shift systems imposed on them by the court.
Re: The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill
#115I really like his example at the end - step-by-step deep dive into a specific topic. 30 hours of learning, direct links to resources, come out the other end as informed and aware of the topic at hand. I usually find it difficult to wade through the mountains of possible (often outdated) resources on a topic I'm unfamiliar with - At one point I was thinking it'd be useful to crowdsource those kind of step-by-step guid…
I'm building this right now actually. Superclass [1] is a place to submit online learning resources by topic, then upvote/comment on the most helpful ones. The goal is eventually something just like you described, kind of a crowd-sourced curriculum builder. This version is rough and buggy, but would love everyone's thoughts/feedback (sam@directedworks.com) https://superclass.co/ Edit: sign up for occasional email upd…
typo on front page: Superclass makes it easier by "gathing"
It's a good idea. I'd like to see this succeed.
Re: The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill
#116One thing I cannot understand is why we have both: (a) a long history of research proving to us that principles like "High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)" are accurate and highly related to extracting the most economically valuable outputs from knowledge workers. (b) open plan offices. Maybe the tech industry is daunting for newcomers because we cram people into a sardine can, give them a…
I’ve worked both in private offices and in open plans. And my experience is that private offices are good for those occasional long deep work sessions but overall the team in total is more productive and happier in open plan. Not everything is about your personal productivity and it’s all too common to see separate team members deeply focused on non-aligned items which makes the joined work much much less than the sum of the parts.
Re: The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is addressed in Cal's book. He acknowledges no plan will survive the day perfectly. Basically, you just re-prioritize your blocks throughout the day. The goal is not to break the day into hour long blocks as much as it is to always have a priority and to maintain focus on that priority. Things happen and no plan survives contact with reality. I have found this method to work well and fit with a modern knowledge…
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth - Mike Tyson
There's a lot of truth and value in that quote, but understanding the context behind it is important. It's boxing - everyone understands they will be punched in the mouth, has practiced getting punched, etc.
You need a plan, but have to be able to adapt to changing circumstances.
For reference, that quote was given in an interview about his upcoming fight against Evander Holyfield. Holyfield dominated the fight, Tyson bit him twice, and the fight was stopped in the 11th round with Holyfield as the winner.
(It would have been more arrogant to say, but perhaps more honestly stated as "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth by Mike Tyson". Tyson is widely considered to be the hardest hitting boxer in history. He retired with a record of 50-6, with 44 wins by knockout and 22 of those knockouts were in the first round.)
Re: The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is addressed in Cal's book. He acknowledges no plan will survive the day perfectly. Basically, you just re-prioritize your blocks throughout the day. The goal is not to break the day into hour long blocks as much as it is to always have a priority and to maintain focus on that priority. Things happen and no plan survives contact with reality. I have found this method to work well and fit with a modern knowledge…
“In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” – General Dwight D Eisenhower
“Failing to plan is planning to fail.”
Re: The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill
#119I created a formula that i havent used since i was 13 but worked amazingly well. (Talk about hard to believe stuff eh?)
The trick was to use sleepyness as a resource.(even more hard to believe!)
You simply focus as hard as you can on the thing you wanted to learn/study/memorize. You dont actually focus on the work but you focus in general. As if pointing the eyes at the self. Make large eyes, keep some muscle tense like your jaw. Breath heavily. The idea is to wear yourself out in 20-30 min. Then go to bed and sleep 20-30 min. And repeat!
I dont know how it works but information is proccesed during the powernap.
After doing some 20-30 cycles of this you are starting to mis out on actual sleep and some trance like state with laser like focus activates. It seems the body gets used to using up all the powernap energy as fast as possible.
The blob of memories becomes self referential by lack of other activities.
The partially parsed modules are organized further when you finnish of with 8 hours of proper sleep.
I think the formula skips the 30 min you normally need to get into something and it consumes just the good part of the 3-4 hours that one can normally focus during a day.
Re: The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Block off each hour of the day and and fill it with one of the TODO items Generally agree with the points but I'd like to note that this point is the most likely failure point in the method. Organizing the day by hours doesn't work for a lot of people. Most productivity books in the old days (60's) recommended it. They generally don't anymore due to the low success rate. That was one of the first things I tried as a…
This is addressed in Cal's book. He acknowledges no plan will survive the day perfectly. Basically, you just re-prioritize your blocks throughout the day. The goal is not to break the day into hour long blocks as much as it is to always have a priority and to maintain focus on that priority. Things happen and no plan survives contact with reality. I have found this method to work well and fit with a modern knowledge…
+1
"No plan survives contact with the enemy." - Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
Some clarification for readers: this generally doesn't mean that a plan is scrapped entirely; it means that changes are normal and anticipated (i.e. NOT an automatic sign of failure) that as new information comes to light and circumstances shift, those executing a plan should be adaptable enough to make adjustments where prudent. In fact, decentralized command was developed in order to allow highly-functioning teams to actively exploit unforeseen advantages which develop as a battle/campaign unfolds.
Although these concepts were forged on the battlefield, they are 100% relevant to civilian 'battles' as well - in this case, time management.