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Is it true that if you wait for motivation to get any work done, you’ll never get anywhere? It certainly sounds plausible. But for many people, particularly those with neurodivergence such as ADHD, the feeling of being motivated may occur less often, or at times when it’s not as needed.
Whether you’re neurotypical or divergent, though, the link between meditation, mindfulness and improved motivation, focus and cognitive function has been proven thoroughly. As the scholars behind a comprehensive 2014 study on the topic put it, “A growing body of research suggests that meditation can enhance various cognitive functions, including attention, memory, and executive function, and that it positively affects brain function and structure relevant to cognition.”
But what if that was brought into the workplace specifically to increase productivity? How would that look? What would we call it?
Author Cal Newport might have the answer. A computer science professor at Georgetown University, Newport has authored a few books about mindful, focused working, including Digital Minimalism, A World without Email and the one that he’s most famous for – and which coined the term – Deep Work: Rules for Success in a Distracted World.
What is deep work?
Deep work is when you’re fully present and immersed in the task at hand. Some people refer to it as being “in the zone” or in a state of flow. It involves being completely focused on a single activity.
Newport’s book blurb says: “Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It’s a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite.”
And from inside the book: “Deep work activities are professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive abilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill and are hard to replicate.”
With mindfulness, being present and meditation proving so effective, it would seem logical that working in just such a manner would be the next step.
Deep work activities are professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive abilities to their limit.
How does deep work, well, work?
Deep work refers to cognitive depth, and is all about being able to focus on one task, uninterrupted, for a set period of time. The idea, according to Newport and his devotees, is to clear and calm your mind, then focus on one cognitively difficult task, gently pushing yourself to your cognitive limit, then stopping.
Some people set aside certain chunks of certain days to do it, some put aside a portion of every day. You can set a timer, turn off notifications and let colleagues and clients know you’ll be unavailable for a certain period. Then, focusing solely and with intent on a specific task, you achieve it. Sound simple? Well, like most things we’ve been putting off that actually end up being way easier to do than we thought, it sort of is simple. But there are tips to achieving it.
According to the folks at Timely, an app/platform for productivity and time management, just like anything, if you don’t protect your deep work time, you will set yourself up to fail.
From the company’s blog: “[Deep work] is a mixture of understanding how you work best, removing distractions in your environment, planning and protecting your deep working time, monitoring your behaviour so you don’t distract yourself, and then just practicing good self-discipline to actually deliver what you promised to do in that time.
“There’s an element of self-training too – incrementally pushing yourself to focus for longer periods of time, as well as re-training your brain that scanning websites is not a reward for the “punishment” of work. Deep work requires effort, and we need to establish positive habits and rituals to reinforce it, as willpower alone is prone to give out.”
What does the science say about deep work?
The short answer: nothing. So far, there are no studies fully examining or measuring the effectiveness or otherwise of deep work. However, deep work’s pivot point and crux is the idea of a flow state. What is that? Simple – it’s ‘being in the zone’ or a real focus, presence and intention to do and continue doing an activity – something short of total absorption, but definitely distraction-free. Sound like a bad mash-up of SiliconValleyese and hippy dippy philosophy? It’s actually not.
The flow state is actually neurologically observable and is a legitimate part of cognition – it’s not just a vague feeling or nebulous concept.
In The Neuroscience of the Flow State, a 2021 study on the ‘neurology of flow’ the authors state that flow states are a huge part of wellbeing: “A well-known phenomenon in research on human performance is “flow”, a state of full task engagement and low levels of self-referential thinking (e.g., worrying, self-reflection). Flow is often associated with athletes, artists, or scientists who are fully task-absorbed in order to achieve peak performance.
“Yet, flow-like states also occur in more mundane situations, such as when engaging in certain tasks during work or leisure time. An example is a gamer spending hours behind the computer without feeling bored, fatigued, or hungry. Experiencing flow is accompanied with sense of accomplishment, meaningfulness, and positive mood states and as such, flow also plays a role in wellbeing.”
Speaking to the BBC about the science behind focus on productivity, neuropsychologist Kim Willment of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the USA, said a good way to prepare yourself for flow states and deep working is to do a simple exercise:
“Read something for 30 minutes, setting a timer to go off every five minutes. When it goes off, ask yourself if your mind has wandered. If so, just refocus on what you're reading," she says. "By training your brain to monitor if your mind is wandering, you strengthen the monitoring process and the ability to maintain focus on a single task.
"Mindfulness,” she concludes, “is about focusing attention on the present moment, and practicing mindfulness has been shown to rewire the brain so that attention is stronger in everyday life.”
And remember – mindfulness, the flow state and deep work practices are all closely related.
Convinced? Then let’s talk about how to do it.
Deep work requires effort, and we need to establish positive habits and rituals to reinforce it.
How to implement deep work in your organisation
Can you create a space for deep working in your personal and professional life on your own? You betcha. Is it going to be as effective without the buy-in of your colleagues, clients, boss and family? Absolutely not.
That means the first and most important step is to create a culture of deep work – just like with any wellbeing initiative or new approach, if the culture of the workplace doesn’t change to accept it, it’s doomed to fail. So what’s the business case for creating time away from ‘busy work’ and limiting distractions to achieve meaningful work?
The authors of the study A Review on the Role of the Neuroscience of Flow States in the Modern World put it best: “In the modern workplace there are so many distractions, from messages to meetings, that result in a reduction of productivity. Yet a 10-year longitudinal study, Cranston and Keller [in their study Increasing the Meaning Quotient of Work] showed people in flow states were 500% more productive.
Who doesn’t want 500% more productive employees? If you’re a staunch capitalist, the takeaway is that your bottom line will improve and if you’re a socialist, the takeaway is that employees who spend time on more productive, meaningful work could theoretically work fewer hours and have a better work/life balance.
One important key to remember, though: flow states are only achieved when the conditions are right for us to succeed at the task at hand – that means that it can’t be something so far above our abilities that we are jarred from the flow state by feelings of overwhelmedness or failure. It also can’t, by nature, be ‘busy’ or ‘shallow work’ (emails, Teams/Slack, admin work, etc.) – it needs to be a sufficiently meaty task, such as creating a presentation, writing a report (or this article) so that the brain is engaged.
But what about neurodivergence?
Does deep work help people with ADHD be more productive?
The answer to that, I’m afraid, will have to wait for the second part in our Deep Work Series, out next week, which features Alicia Navarro, the founder of Flown, a deep work platform that allows professionals to connect and work deeply together. The practical application of deep work principles combined with an engaging platform-as-a-service is a unique approach to deep work. In part three of our series, a few of us on the Executive Grapevine team will be trialling Flown for a month to see how it helps our focus and productivity. Stay tuned!
