How-To Complete Guide: Deep Work

Everything you need to get started

If our last article got you interested in Deep Work and you now want to know how to put it into practice, you have come to the right place.

A step-by-step guide to Deep Work.

1. Think about rituals

   The brain responds to rituals: the coffee early in the morning, the same seat in your favourite restaurant, the after-work beer.

   When you do something repeatedly in the same form or at the same time, the brain recognises a pattern and develops an expectation around it.

   Rituals are mostly positive. They are activities that make you happy or help you relax. The positive feedback strengthens this neural connection and at some point you either feel a craving for that ritual (coffee in the morning) or you feel driven to tackle the next piece of planned work. One example of this is working at a tidy desk: once you have developed the habit of always tidying your desk before you work, a tidy desk will trigger your brain to start working.

2. Plan your working phases

   How long should the Deep Work phase be? What length of Deep Work phase is realistic? These two figures may well differ, because the time you would need does not necessarily match the time you actually have.

   Where and when do you want to work?

   Will you get hungry? Do you have enough water?

   Is the lighting right? The temperature? Do you feel comfortable?

   Are your working materials to hand?

   We always recommend having something with you to note down any questions or tasks that you need to discuss with other people. Do not let them interrupt your Deep Work phase!

3. Prioritise your tasks

   What will you be working on?

   What are your goals?

   What is important? What is urgent? What is necessary?

4. Remove every distraction

   Which distractions are there in your room? These are often emails, phone messages, calls, messengers, social networks, colleagues. All of this should be reduced as far as possible.
   You could announce in advance that you will not be reachable for the next while, or only from a certain time onwards. Your phone could go into flight mode and all unnecessary programs on the laptop could stay closed.
   There is an extreme form of shutting yourself off, a monastic philosophy, in which you have nothing with you but a blank sheet of paper and a pen. This form is particularly effective when you want to do creative work or take a deep journey into your own self.

5. Review the Deep Work phase afterwards

   After every phase you should ask yourself whether it was successful. Success is not necessarily measured by the immediate result, but among other things by whether the approach can be used over the long term, whether you felt comfortable doing it and whether any changes came about.

   What would you do differently next time?

   How can you make this method more accessible, so that you can perhaps integrate it into your everyday life more often?

   What did not work well?

   It can take some time to find your own Deep Work strategy, but once you have, it becomes a powerful tool for being more productive and feeling less stressed.

6. Extra tips

   If your Deep Work phase is work-related, it should be built into your working hours.

   Some people will not understand or support the fact that you are unavailable during Deep Work phases.
   They do not have to; the main thing is that they respect it.

   Do not be afraid to set boundaries. Either with your colleagues and family members, or with yourself, when it comes to not working overtime and letting your free time be free time.

When you have too much to do - what else helps

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