As I type this, I’ve just finished uploading the second video for the channel scheduled for Monday 16th December.
It’s taken three hours – 70% most of that time was spent on the thumbnail design, 15% on the title and 15% on the description, tags, links, subtitles and settings.
Because I’m relatively new to making videos, doing this takes a lot of brain power. Using new software, learning things as I go, trying to design something that looks good enough.
While doing this I’m fighting my perfectionism and imposter syndrome and trying not to over think everything.
Every time we’re doing this type of work, we’re doing what Cal Newport wrote about in his book, Deep Work (Amazon link).
“deep work, which I define as the act of focusing without distraction on a cognitively demanding task.”
Cal Newport
But a typical work day isn’t only 3-4 hours. We’re expected to work for 8.
So let’s take a look at what we can do to plan our days to make the most of our best 3-4 hours, and also be productive in the other 4 hours.
What is deep work?
Psychologist Anders Ericsson’s studied elite performers like musicians and athletes and found that they rarely exceed more than 3-4 hours of deliberate practise. And for good reason.
Deep, focused work relies on the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which gets depleted quickly when engaged in intensive problem-solving, creativity, or learning.
After about four hours, the quality of our work often begins to drop, and we’re more likely to make mistakes.
But the magic of deep work lies in its ability to push your brain to its limits, for skill development, innovation, and clarity. This focus helps you enter what Robert Csikszentmihalyi calls a Flow State (Amazon link) – a psychological zone where your productivity and creativity peak, making the time you spend working significantly more impactful.
The myth of 8 hour work days
The entire concept of 8 hour work days comes from the hours implemented by Henry Ford at the Ford Motor Company in 1914. Prior to that, people were working 10-16 hour days.
The 8 hour work day was gradually adopted by more and more businesses and has remained standard ever since. Although recently, the 4 days week concept is challenging this.
For knowledge workers, how much of that 8 hours is actually spent working?
Asana’s 2022 Anatomy of work study found that the typical knowledge worker only spends only 42% of their time on skilled or strategic work and the rest on ‘work about work’ – meetings, updating statuses, email etc.
Those 3 hours 20ish minutes match pretty well with how long studies show we can spend in deep work per day.
So perhaps people are naturally switching to tasks with lower brain intensity to manage the expectation to be at work for 8 hours, but our biological ability to only be able to do deep work for 3-4 hours of it.
Maximising your peak 3-4 hours
To help you get the most from your day, the trick is to get the most of your limited 3-4 hours of deep work.
Figure out when your peak time is
We all have a natural body clock. Our circadian rhythm dictates whether we’re morning people or night owls – most of us are somewhere in between. I do my best intensive work after lunch but my partner is the opposite. He’s much better in the morning.
See what works best for you and try to schedule your deep work for those times.
I’m sorry if you’re a night owl – the standard working day seems to be designed against you! I used to be night owl too, but after years of working 9-5 I’ve managed to shift my peak work time back to the afternoon.
Protect your deep work time!
I used to block out time in my calendar under ‘Project work – Unavailable’ so at least I wouldn’t show up as ‘available’ when people were planning meetings in and I could get some work done!
Because my peak work time is when a lot of people have their post lunch slump, they’d often pop over for a chat or want to talk in the kitchen. But I’d need to tell them I have to focus on my work. It can feel like you’re being impolite, but people understand that you need to work!
Don’t create your own interruptions during deep work time either! No checking social media or email. You need to stay in the zone.
Plan the one thing you’ll be doing ahead of time
You’ll get the best results by focussing on just one task during this time. Don’t try to multi-task! Time and again studies have shown that despite what it feels like, it’s less efficient than focusing on one thing at a time.
You don’t want to waste any deep work time looking for files or getting things ready to actually do the work. Use your non-peak hours for getting these things ready.
Create a tired tasks list
Deep work can make us tired. So if you’re doing your 3-4 hours of deep work in the morning, then make your afternoon as easy as you can by doing things on your tired tasks list!
Reply to everyday emails, catch up on Slack and Teams chats, run reports, book travel, organize files etc.
Main takeaways
We can all focus for a maximum of 3-4 hours in a day before we start to make mistakes. Schedule this work in for when you’re at your peak energy levels, protect this time and minimise distractions and only work on one task during this time.