How much “Deep Work” is enough?

Two days ago I mentioned how the kind of valuable work that demands deep focus changes as you advance in your career – even along a purely technical track. It’s easy to get the idea that this “Deep Work” is the only valuable work that you do, and that’s not true.

I hear people say, “I have so many meetings I can’t get my real work done.”

But depending on the meeting and your role in it, a meeting just might be the very “real work” you’re responsible for. It might be precisely how you bring the most value to your organization.

In other cases, a meeting or other shallow work might still need to be done, and you’re still the right person to do it.

In his book Deep Work,Cal Newport observes that most of us have the capacity or stamina for only about one to four hours of truly Deep Work each day. And in many cases, the demands of the job, environment, or culture may consume enough time that we don’t actually have time for a full 4 hours.

If you’re feeling uneasy about how much time you’re spending doing “real work” in a week, recognize the limits of your capacity. Understand the real expectations of your current culture, and then schedule the Deep Work on your calendar in a way that honors your capacity and culture.

And if you’d like more detail around what that kind of analysis looks like, check out Cal Newport’s book Deep Work or reach out to me and we can talk. Visit stevedwire.com/talk to start the conversation.