how to do deep work
Newport identifies four philosophies of deep work:
1. Monastic scheduling: where we disappear to locations unknown, unhook from modern life and live, monk like, for months on end to dedicate ourselves to deep work. Jung and his cabin in the woods to think deep thoughts.
I think we can agree, this is probably not possible for most of us.
2. Bimodal scheduling: dividing time between deep work and everything else. Switching from utterly monastic and focused (no phone, internet, away from home) to all your shallow work. Here, the absolute minimum unit of deep work is one full day.
This is also not most people’s real life, and completely undermines the core message of this writing course where we write a little bit each day. I will encourage a small bit of bi-modal scheduling in the form of writing retreats to complement our main approach.
3. Rhythmic scheduling: Newport characterises this as the chain method or write daily approach. The upside of this approach is it takes away the cognitive load of decision making. It is scheduled, therefore you write.
This is our approach to begin with as we are forming new habits and breaking old habits. We are in a battle with the ‘cognitive load’ of constantly deciding to do something else.
4. Journalistic scheduling : Writing anytime, anywhere. This is the approach I ultimately want to move you to, but it is not for beginners! In this philosophy you can switch into writing mode at any point. 15 minutes waiting to pickup your child from somewhere, 30 minutes between classes. 20 minutes waiting for your supervisory meeting can all be writing slots where you pop into that task list and do something on your chapter.
Eventually, this is the way I would like you to approach writing, but this takes a long time to practice. For now, we will continue with rhythmic scheduling.
TODAY I WILL…
Write for 2 hours according to my scheduled time, working my way down my task list;
Engage in an honest reflection, using your journal, about your tendency (or not) to be distracted and fritter away the time you should be spending on your PhD.