Must-reads
Don’t get conned into believing looking busy is how you should work. Visibly doing is an industrial indicator of productivity. As a woodcutter, the more you hit the wood with your axe, the more firewood you produce. As a knowledge worker, the only indicator of productivity are your deliverables. Be honest when you place yourself in the category of industrial worker or knowledge worker and in your evaluation of whether being busy is something to live up to. You might even switch between industrial and knowledge on a task level within a job, or between jobs and your personal life.
Reject presenteeism, where being the loudest and most present employee is considered the best one. Do actual work and finish tasks. Creating an environment where you have blocks of time allocated to doing the job itself is required.
Work deeply instead of shallow. Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. Shallow work is non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style work, often performed while distracted. Committing to deep work enables you to produce your absolute best pieces. Habits and routines are needed to reach this deep work state.
There are four strategies for working deep: the monastic approach, the bimodal approach, the rhythmic approach and the journalistic approach. With the monastic approach you behave like a monk and totally shut yourself off from the outside world and its influence. An example is in an author finishing his novel in a secluded cabin in the woods. For the bimodal approach, you set aside a block of for example 4-6 hours to work like a monk in the monastic approach. When you have finished your block of work, you switch to your other mode where you are free to do whatever you want. The rhythmic approach chunks work down into time blocks that can be structured using a calendar and the Pomodoro technique where you set a timer and keep working until the timer is finished. The most free of them all is the journalistic approach where you dedicate any free time to deep work. This approach works for a busy and changing schedule, but relies on your discipline to keep making progress.
Use unproductive downtime as your productive meditation time. Taking a shower, commuting and going for a walk with your dog are great moments to think and solve complex problems.