Deep work. A way of working deeply and focused. But is that it? Shouldn’t it be easy to attain this state and isn’t everyone capable of doing so?
We usually think of deep work as a manner of not being distracted and just being in “our zone”, but there is much more that…
The essential issue to start with, is that society lacks a good attention span due to digitalism and technological shifts. A well trained attention span is identified by the competence to hold focus on one given doing for a long period of time. The timeframe depends on us, on how we set our standards. But fundamentally spoken, there is one core essence that surrounds this approach.
The core value of deep focus
It doesn’t mean to be in a robotic state and just stare at your task or whatever you do. The agonising aspect of it, is that people think you should avoid as many distractions as possible. But honestly, that’s not about it at all. True focus doesn’t get distracted, no matter how the surroundings appear to happen. It eliminates redundant stimulus itself, without you putting any effort into it. You can essentially just lean into it and observe it. Your thoughts appear clear and gathered into one place, that no one can take from you. And the gloriest think about it? You do not even need to force focus.
The more you try the focus to attain, the more it feels in vain.
Genuine deep focus can be trained like a muscle though. I tried it out. I went into a very busy café and saw myself sometimes looking up, being ‘superficially’ distracted. However, it turned out I was still in focus. Do you sympathize with the feeling when you watch TV, but you do not actually watch it? You can still be caught in your own thoughts or whatever you prioritize to do.
When I first discovered the positive effects of achieving the focus state, I felt tremendously good. 2 aspects were slowly converging to a one-round-principle. My thoughts and my actions. I started to delve into a momentum that shifted from total overthinking to a state that encouraged me to just continue and do it. I never questioned my actions, because I knew it felt right.
The 5-minute rule
I stopped putting expectations too high. I started telling myself that I will do this for 5 minutes, that’s it. And the curious thing about it is that after these 5 minutes you will actually start enjoying whatever you are doing. I used to hate running in the gym or doing the dishes. But I quit justifying myself and praised the action over thoughts. Indeed, as you may realise, I do value discipline over intuition. But there is a core reason behind it.
I decided to not wait until I feel like doing something.
As long as you wait for the motivation to kick in, it can possibly take ages until you for example hit the gym. But so, do not negotiate, do not contemplate or consider. I even once took all the effort to go to the gym and eventually ended up only running for 10 minutes… But you know what? Who cares?
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