The lost art

In order to get the most out of our allotted writing time, we need to be doing deep work. Cal Newport, Professor at Georgetown University and author of Deep Work, explains that in our hyper-connective world, maintaining concentration for long periods of time is becoming a rarified talent, but one that can reap substantial rewards if we can just remember how to do it.

This is when owning your time and behaviour, the core principles of this course’s writing philosophy, becomes critical to your success. Tackling cognitively complex tasks and uncovering new knowledge needs concentration and lots of it. Newport argues that this kind of concentration has been lost, and we need to strengthen our capacity to concentrate. Like any other skill, this takes repeated practice.

Deep work is therefore contrasted with shallow work: emails, classes, training courses for example are part of this shallow work category. All jobs require a portion of shallow work and your PhD is no exception, but the emphasis in a PhD is deep work. We need to minimise the amount of time spent on shallow work because in and of itself this repeated exposure to shallow work undermines our ability to do deep work. The constant dopamine hit of finishing easy tasks actively undermines our urge to sit and concentrate on something difficult.

TODAY I WILL…

• Turn off all notifications on my computer and phone whether I am writing or not. Do not disturb is a wonderful tool. Have no bleeps or other notifications on the computer or phone that distract you;

• Review my upcoming week, and refine my list of writing tasks;

• Commit to writing in a different location for one of my writing slots;

• Write for 2 hours minimum, working through my list.