Do you know the difference between deep work and shallow work, does your team execute in this way?

Recently I read the book Deep Work. This was a great book to shine a light on how we as a society view and execute on work. I never have been a proponent of the “9-5” work style. I think it is lazy and unfulfilling.

People often do meaningless work in their time at their office just to make sure they punch in and punch out at the right time. This work usually never leads to productive measures that move themselves or the company forward. To me it promotes laziness and an entitled society that just expects a paycheck for lazy work.

People often ask me how I get so much done in a day and the book really helped shine a light on that. First I don’t buy into the “clock puncher” mentality but rather into what has to get done to move me and the team forward. Everyday I have five things that have to get done to move me forward and these are not bullshit things. These are high level tasks that will produce high net results. When doing these tasks I block everything else out. I go deep on these things and I am not distracted by email, text, social or anything else while doing these things.

Additionally I work very hard to not multitask. I do one thing at a time which can sometimes be difficult when you are running multiple organizations. Everyone wants my time but it is up to me to say when and how they get it. I am not curing cancer over here and I am pretty sure you are not either so that email, that text or that call can sometimes wait if you are in the middle of something deep.

It also allows me to then completely focus on that email when it is time to and not just fire off some half witted email because I am in the middle of something else. If you haven’t read the book I would highly encourage you to do so and also take a hard look at your day and see how you can become more efficient.

You will thank yourself for it.