Doing What Counts Most

Do not take breaks from distraction. Instead, take breaks from the focus.

Hal Newport

Over the last 10 years or so, increasingly I am being asked to conduct skill-based (that is, experiential) learning sessions of shorter and shorter duration. The assumption appears to be: ‘We are smart. We’ll understand this quickly’. Or ‘Do you have a quick hack for this?’ ‘Hack’ is becoming my most despised word. It is as if having a conceptual understanding is the same thing as having a deep skill. In addition, we are spendthrifts with our time pursuing busyness and distraction with little recourse to priority.

This workshop is about thinking deeply, often. It is the opposite of ‘hyperlink thinking’ which is assuredly hyper. Hyperlinking is not slow; it is not deep and hardly warrants the word ‘thinking’. True productivity is about consciously managing your time and energy – which turns out to be mostly about managing what you pay attention to.

This workshop is about slowing down and trying to do less things. Considerably less. But doing those we do deeper. It is about ruthless prioritising, so you spend more and more time doing well what is really important. The second major emphasis in this workshop is about reducing distractions. We will explore three main strategies to get a lot more of worth done of a much higher quality and to thereby be happier and healthier:

Identifying what counts most and, conversely, what wastes our attention and time
Routines to reduce distraction in the first place so we can focus on what counts most
Mindful self-observation to notice and recover from distractions that do intrude

Module 1, Attention and Distraction

Module 1, Attention and Distraction, begins with an understanding of the modern assault on our attention and the accompanying addiction to frenetic activity, as an alleged end in itself. Multi-tasking (more accurately ‘switch-tasking’) is debunked and participants engage in an exercise called ‘make war on distraction’. The module ends by collectingthe group’s ideas and providing tips and strategies to reduce workplace distraction.

Module 2, Prioritising Deep Work

Module 2, Prioritising Deep Work, explores Hal Newport’s notion of ‘Deep Work’. The purpose is to minimise the “attention loss”that attends attempts to multi-task. Participants identify their optimal working style (monastic, bimodal, rhythmic or journalistic) and then share activities and strategies to implement that style. We then explore strategies for deep work including: rituals and routines; embracing moments of ‘boredom’; radically reducing use of social media; and ‘draining the shallows’. Steven Covey’s prioritisation matrix is introduced, and participants identify the less important activities they can eradicate from their lives.

Module 3, Techniques & Strategies for Deep Work

Module 3, Techniques & Strategies for Deep Work, focuses on Quadrant 2 of Steven Covey’s prioritisation matrix where we spend our energies and attention on what’s important, but not yet urgent. As Peter Drucker put it: ‘Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.’ He also characterised this as ‘purposeful abandonment’, thus the module explores a multitude of ways to say ‘no’ and then introduces two techniques for deep work: ‘multiple put downs’ and the eradication of ‘twilight tasks.’ Adam Fraser’s concept of the ‘third space’ is introduced to provide mindful pauses throughout our day. Finally, a quick breathing technique is provided to make third spaces even more effective.