Productivity Tips from Deep Work

Day 249 / 365

Anyone who is serious about their work, or want to be, should definitely read the book Deep Work by Carl Newport. I listened to an audiobook version, and it really opened my eyes to the fact that how I am becoming a slave to distractions, and how that’s preventing me from becoming as productive as I can be.

Here are some tips from the book that everyone should consider applying in their lives.

Utilize the time you spend on trivial tasks

A lot of our time during the day is spent doing tasks that require little mental attention. These would include stuff like commuting to work, jogging, doing the dishes, and cleaning your room. Now most of us choose to zone out during these tasks by either listening to music or a podcast or watching a TV show.

On the other hand, you can better utilize this time by focusing on any problems at work that requires thinking. Maybe you need to sort out the timeline for a project. Maybe you have a presentation coming up and you need to think of what points to include in it. All this can be done while you are doing these trivial tasks without stressing your brain much.

Do not burn yourselves out

Working non-stop on something and losing sleep might not always be the best for your productivity. Even though you may put in more hours, the quality of work will decline, and not to mention how it will deteriorate your health.

Just like you should limit the time you spend on leisure activities, you should limit the time you spend on work as well. It always helps if you can fix the hours during the day when you will work, as this allows your body to get accustomed to concentrating and working hard in that period of time, and properly relaxing the rest of the day.

Don’t take todays problems to bed

We are so exhausted by the end of a workday that all we want to do is to close our computers and go home. We often leave a lot of issues unresolved, thinking we’ll figure it out the next day. More often than not, these issues will keep you awake at night.

A better approach would be to make a plan for the next day before you leave home. This simple exercise would hardly take you 5 minutes. Just list down all the issues that need work at the moment, and whats the next step you are going to take tomorrow to resolve them.

This post is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — Prepare for the worst