We live in a distracted world where depth of investigation is discouraged. Despite increases in scientific spending, the number of publications, or the amount of PhDs being awarded, major discoveries in science and engineering have declined significantly in recent decades. The new-music market is shrinking, and old hits are dominating. We are working more days and longer hours, but US productivity growth is way down. A society that produces meaningful output is a healthy society, but meaningful output is arguably on the decline in many fields.
I argue that distraction and “noise” are key inhibitors to a healthy and progressing society. In the nearly three years since I quit my job, I’ve been forced to examine my strong tendency toward distraction. What follows is a discussion of methods that I’ve found incredibly useful in retraining my brain for deep and focused work and why that matters so much today. Our peak potential resides in no more than four hours per day.
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Let Us Begin in the Workplace:
Looking back on my career in the corporate world, I realize that the majority of my working day was dedicated to shallow tasks, and consequently, a shallow depth of investigation. These tasks were separated often and continuously by meetings, instant message pings, emails, hallway chatter, or offers of chocolate from that lady that exists on the hallway of every office job. I’m serious. She’s there. If you need chocolate, she’s just down the hall. And she likes to talk.
And I was just as much to blame. For example, on my first rotation as a newly minted full-time employee, I was caught by a senior mentor watching a YouTube video about a climber getting stuck in a crack and shitting his pants. Yeah, that video. My mentor scolded me like a dad, and I was embarrassed beyond words. (But it was worth it.)
The Big and Scary Implications of Distractions and Shallow Work
Feeling unproductive might be a bummer to the individual. However, the real cause for alarm is the plateauing of consequential human achievements, discoveries, and even our art– all indicators of a healthy society.
Science
Major innovative patents and scientific discoveries are becoming less frequent. Part of this trend can be explained by institutional pressure: granting agencies, universities, and other institutions that support and fund research want a return on their investment. As such, narrow and focused studies, especially those building on previous research, are more likely to be supported. Narrow and focused studies can be conducted and published quickly. Tenure-track professors know this all too well: the goal is to publish your face off, not go off the deep end on long-term, risky research. That kind of study is high-risk, but also the kind of depth of investigation that has historically produced big splashes in science and engineering.
In a world of infinite ideas and a growing list of journals and publications, it’s a safer bet to expand on previous research than to investigate new ideas. It’s easier to niche down and specialize than to venture into uncharted territory. In the article linked above, Johan Chu, an assistant professor at MIT, notes the frustration associated with the distracted world of scientific and corporate research:
“We live in a world where we have an abundance of choices of how we spend our time.”
Johan Chu, MIT
Music
Early last year, Ted Gioia, writing for The Atlantic, asked “Is Old Music Killing New Music?” Gioia showed how old songs now make up 70% (!) of the music market. Veteran music producer Rick Beato, on YouTube, commonly bemoans how pop music is becoming increasingly tedious. New singles are filled with repeated single melodies, lack classic structures (bridge, chorus, etc.), and are auto-tuned to death. This really clever analysis shows how key changes, a fixture of past pop music hits and an incredibly powerful element, have all but disappeared in the last fifteen years. Simply put, popular music has lost its depth and complexity.
Why does music increasingly suck today? Well, there’s probably a book there, but we have to examine the streaming music economy. On Spotify, we have over 100 million songs at our fingertips. We don’t have to wait for an album for months, like I did as a little punk of the 90s. I had to go to an actual store and buy the tape or CD. I’d listen to it 1,273 times until the next mind-blowing album came along. Online, we can listen to a song in one genre, shout to Alexa across the room, and move on to something else entirely halfway through.
In short, the streaming market incentivizes creating many simple songs with easily producible, attention-grabbing elements. Instead of focusing on masterpieces, artists have a better shot of commercial success with a quantity over quality approach.
Was the Low-Hanging Fruit Picked?
A case could be made that the low-hanging fruit in science, literature, art, and economics has been picked. However, another equally compelling argument exists: humans are more distracted, resulting in less meaningful output.
The problem is the addictive nature of many of our distractions. The trend toward distraction likely started with the introduction of the television, and has devolved over the decades into around-the-clock staring at our phones. For example, the links between social media use and increased distraction are well documented, but we keep using these platforms anyway. Social media is designed to activate the brain’s pleasure centers, causing the release of dopamine, a chemical also present in the more meaningful activities of sex, social activity, and even the enjoyment of food.
When we get our fix through shallow distractions, deeper pursuits associated with human flourishing are crowded out. And unlike the “OG” television, we can carry our phones with us everywhere. We simply have too many choices for easy entertainment, keeping us perpetually in a shallow depth of investigation.
The Profound Legacy of the Short Work Day
We are working harder and longer, but US productivity growth is way down, in tandem with diminishing returns on science spending.
The idea of hustle and grind is everywhere in modern work culture. The message is simple: work harder and/or work longer, and you will get more and better results. Those assumptions are fundamentally incorrect. Some of the best work ever created by mankind was done by individuals who only worked a handful of hours per day. But they didn’t have the distractions we have.
Charles Darwin, author of On the Origin of Species and an all-around scientific titan, famously declared by noon each day, “I’ve done a good day’s work.” He spent his afternoons on long walks, naps, and letter writing.
John McPhee, a prolific master of creative nonfiction, noted in an interview with The Paris Review:
“If you put a drop in a bucket every day, after three hundred and sixty-five days, the bucket’s going to have some water in it.”
John McPhee
McPhee produced an incredible volume of high-quality work as professor at Princeton University. He was a four-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and won that award in 1999 for his collection Annals of the Former World. He achieved this body of work, allegedly at least*, on 500 measly words per day, six days per week.
Winston Churchill, while fending off a Nazis onslaught on British soil in World War II, was an unapologetic napper. In fact, he spent the vast majority of his day acting like a complete and disgusting sloth by today’s standards, only working a few hours, mostly after 11pm!
“Nature has not intended mankind to work from eight in the morning until midnight without that refreshment of blessed oblivion which, even if it only lasts twenty minutes, is sufficient to renew all the vital forces.”
Winston Churchill
The list of highly influential people who worked five hours or less per day is enormous. But that list has dwindled to nearly zero in the modern world. The key is that these titans of the past were able to balance deep and focused, cognitively-demanding tasks with periods of unfocused down-time. Our modern world is at odds with this kind of structure. If we’ve completed a task, our culture encourages us to start another. And respond to emails in ten minutes.
*McPhee allegedly developed a practice of writing no more than 500 words a day, six days a week. I haven’t been able to document a primary source for this claim.
Key Methods for Finding Depth and Focus in Our Work and Life
I fundamentally believe in my bones that modern productivity is a train that has gone completely off the rails. That said, I also do not ascribe to a life of pure leisure. The pinnacle of human capital, which we need more now than ever, lies somewhere in between.
Below is a framework for pursuing the deep life, most of which I’ve learned and (attempted to) implement from the author Cal Newport:
1. Deep Focused Blocks of 60-120 Minutes
The best method I’ve found to pursue deep work is to simply put down my phone, enable the “Do Not Disturb” mode, close my laptop web browser (unless I’m researching on the web), set a timer, put on some instrumental music, and do something—anything—until I’ve exceeded at least sixty minutes of uninterrupted work.
The ability to work deeply, completely focused on a single objective, is a skill. And every skill requires focus and deliberate practice. For instance, I’ve been working intently for about four years to detrain my compulsive tendency to grab my phone every time I hit a snag. With distractions literally at our fingertips, retraining the brain to focus is no easy task.
Time Blocking
Time Blocking is the practice of assigning a task to each minute of your day. I learned about this approach from the professor and prolific writer Cal Newport. In his must-read book, Deep Work, and his podcast Deep Questions (and other books here), Newport portrays the modern life of shallow distractions—social media, email, television, unnecessary meetings—as key inhibitors to the depth required for human flourishing and maximum cognitive potential.
The process is simple: Tasks that require deep cognitive focus, such as writing, coding, crafting, or studying, are given blocks of 60-120 minutes of uninterrupted time. In these blocks, no other tasks are allowed (save for emergencies, of course); No phone calls, texts, checking email, paying bills, or scrolling of news or social media.
Other less cognitively-demanding tasks, such as those outlined above, are given their own narrow blocks of time. Some may need to check email once every hour, while others may only check once or twice a day, if at all.
The Problem with Multi-Tasking and Context Shifting
The idea is to train our brain to focus deeply on a narrow task, without context-shifting sporadically throughout the day. When we constantly shift our focus, part of our attention stays with the previous task, limiting our cognitive resources for the new task.
Attention residue, a term coined by Dr. Sophie Leroy (and one of my all-time favorite terms), describes how our brains have difficulty fully transferring our attention between tasks. When we leave Task A for Task B, we leave some of our attention still focused on Task A. This is why multi-tasking is so ineffective.
The Limits of Deep Work: Four Hours
For deep work, the limit appears to be around four hours total, generally in two separate blocks up to 120 minutes. Beyond about four hours of deep work, our attention wanes. No wonder Churchill was napping for two hours and taking a bunch of baths. Strategizing over Nazi advances has to be at least as cognitively draining as trying to finish listening to a song by some of this year’s Grammy finalists.
Now, that doesn’t mean that you should go to your boss and demand a new four-hour work day. I don’t think that will go well for you. The point is that deep, cognitively demanding focus is very difficult to maintain for more than about four hours. From here, we can focus on less cognitively demanding tasks, such as replying to emails, making calls, attending meetings, or disabling keys on your coworker’s keyboard while they are pooping.
It’s in your and your employer’s best interest that you carve out blocks of time each day for whatever tasks demand your focus. A meeting with a boss to discuss your need for focus might provide unexpected results.
Time Blocking Schedule Example
I begin each morning by blocking out the productive part of my working days based on the short-, medium-, and long-term tasks. I generally do my deepest work in two blocks of 60-120 minutes, separated by a 30–60-minute breakfast and reading break. This break serves as a sort of cognitive ‘palate cleanser.’ I find it very important to resist checking emails or doing any other shallow tasks until after I’ve done my deep work, but that’s me.
What follows is an hour of administrative time. I check email, pay bills, schedule interview calls, update my website, or, you know, trim my special toenails with a Dremel tool. In short, an administrative block is reserved for any task that is not cognitively demanding—the type of tasks that are notorious interrupters of deep work. Other small 15–30-minute blocks can be inserted throughout the day for email and other similar tasks.
Importantly, don’t mix separate tasks. There is no checking of email during deep work, and no deep work when checking email. One must channel their inner-four-year-old, being careful not to mix items on the plate that is our working life.
A simple outline of my typical working day:
7:30 Clipping Chains: writing or podcasting
9:30 Breakfast and reading
10:30 Other Writing
12:00 Administration (email, interview questions, pay bills, etc.)
(The work day is complete)
1:00 Strength training
2:00 Lunch
3:00 Open (Hiking, reading, friend/family calls, general relaxation, spending time with my super cool wife)
This Just Sounds Like More Work
Is all of this just another busyness life hack?
Newport would argue, and I’d agree, that this practice allows us to generate work in more concentrated time blocks. A less-focused approach, using unstructured windows laden with distractions, requires more time to complete a given task.
For example, if I check social media every ten minutes, my ability to write is severely restricted. I’m trying to write, but I’m smeared in Instagram’s sticky attention residue. To achieve a goal of writing 1,000 words per day on a subject, I can either get that done in a single session of 60-120 minutes of focused work, or I can draw it out over many hours of distracted multi-tasking.
By working in focused blocks, work time is (1) reduced, and (2) higher quality. The benefit? We can do more and better work, enhancing meaning and purpose. Meanwhile this approach frees up more time for rest, relaxation, or connection with friends and family. Ultimately, this practice provides a better framework for satisfying the ancient Greek condition of eudaimonia, or human flourishing.
2. Don’t Work All Day. And Don’t Work Every Day.
Since I quit my corporate job, I’ve learned that I have an inherent and palpable guilt around unstructured free time, particularly during the day. For example, I once believed that it was only appropriate to read at night, right before bed. Reading at any other point in the day felt lazy and unproductive, so I didn’t do it.
And I was wrong. Very wrong. And it’s taking a lot of intention on my part to change this mindset.
The key is to provide a window of unstructured time for thought and reflection during each and every day. We don’t rest enough, and we often mischaracterize what it is to rest.
As discussed earlier, many prolific thinkers and innovators of the past spent most of their days not working. They napped, read books for pleasure, or walked in gardens, enjoying lilies and birds. They didn’t rush to the gym and do burpees, say yes to everything, or feel the need to catch a red-eye flight after work for a “vacation” based more on FOMO than any sort of actual unwinding.
I’m no exception: I find it much more challenging to rest than it is to focus on work.
A Day of True Rest
Driven climbers, including myself, typically view climbing days as breaks from work. The problem, however, especially for performance-oriented climbers, is that climbing can be work. Deep focus on a high-level physical endeavor is important. But without ample time for true rest and relaxation, however, we might be simply swapping back and forth between two versions of something resembling work. Eventually, we risk stagnation in our professional and recreational lives. And with stagnation comes our dear friends, resentment, bitterness, and less meaningful output.
The continued difficulty for me is to carve out a single day of complete rest. I’m generally either working, climbing, or both. And I love that balance. But I know I feel better with a single day free of anything productive. As difficult as that is to schedule, I feel strongly that I benefit from doing so.
The takeaway is simple: Cramming more work into a day or week will result in an inevitable decline in both the quantity and quality of the output. And our workplaces and institutions are starting to catch on.
Why Not More Free Time?
I’ve heard it said that happiness is an empty calendar. At first, I shrugged this claim off as flawed logic. This statement, at least initially, seemed to suggest that we can find happiness by doing nothing.
But upon further reflection, I have to agree. An empty calendar isn’t a life free of depth. An empty calendar provides the ultimate deep life. Any given day can be directed toward utilizing the mind’s potential. Meanwhile, we can carve out time for rest, reflection, or time with others.
The more our calendar is filled with shallow obligations, distractions, and weak social bonds, the less we flourish. The more depth we pursue, through learning, creating, or connecting with others, the more content we become, as individuals and societies.
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Who knows, human behavior and performance are extremely difficult to measure accurately. Studies are limited to soft science results, you can’t do the classic scientific model with humans in nebulous areas like the hypothetical concept of deep work. So, maybe, maybe not. To me it’s the latest fad, but if it works for you that’s great. But is it because it’s science, or just the placebo effect of the next business sensation?
Fad, placebo effect, or otherwise, it’s worked wonders for me.
Hey …Chad – just listened to this podcast – as a person who is extremely easily distracted, I think I got some great pointers! (and what is that intro and extro music??)
Glad to hear it! The track is called “Cool Jazz Loops.” I found it on one of the many royalty-free music websites, but I don’t remember where off-hand. Sorry!