Months ago I booked this week out in my diary for Deep Work.
A number of marketing projects had been building up and it was clear I needed some real head space and time to nail them.
Now, I know how these weeks can go. You start with the best of intentions, to be disciplined and focussed, but can’t quite resist checking email and getting sucked into anything and everything. You wonder where the hell the day went and why you didn’t get much done.
So I took a big step and asked Sean to disable my email so I couldn’t get it, even if I wanted to!
What a difference
At first it felt really weird, a strange anxiety from being out of touch. And I realised just how addicted we are to email and being connected. I noticed how much mental energy and focus it steals, stopping us from getting the really important things done.
It’s made me really conscious of that hard-wired compulsion to seek distraction, especially when I’m doing something mentally challenging. I found myself continually checking my phone in case anyone had messaged. In the end I put my phone in another room.
You might know that I’m a huge fan of Deep Work and how much you can achieve with it. I don’t have email on my phone, I don’t do Facebook. So I was surprised how much I was still seeking distraction. It’s amazing how difficult it’s become to focus on something for long periods of time – technology is actually rewiring our brains to seek distraction and that’s pretty worrying.
So with August being a relatively quiet time for many, I wondered what projects could you take some time out to finish?
What thinking do you need to do?
And could you take a day or 2 away from email to see how much you could get done?
What do you think you could achieve if you gave yourself the time and space, without distraction?
If you dare to do it then let me know how you get on.