“How are you doing?”
“I’m SO busy!”
“That’s so great!”

Or even worse….

“How are you doing? Are you busy?”

Somehow, “busyness” has become a status symbol of the elite and wealthy, but does anyone really know why? When did busyness become the standard for success? Was it during the Great Depression when ANY work was good work? Was it in the boom times of the mid eighties, the era of the movies, The Secret To My Success and Wall Street where “greed was good?”

Regardless of where it started, being busy (or at least appearing to be) has now become cool. It’s even become a weirdly aspirational bit of American culture. When we hear “busy,” we think “successful.” Busy people MUST be more successful than those who aren’t, right?

This isn’t how things were supposed to turn out, at least according to some prominent economic theory. Not having to work was supposed to be the reward for having made it. That’s what economist Thorstein Veblen saw in his 1899 book The Theory of the Leisure Class: the working classes, who were decidedly not cool, took labor to be their “recognised and accepted mode of life,” and they had no choice but to take “pride in a reputation for efficiency in their work,” since that was the only avenue of satisfaction available to them. To be at the top was to be a member of the leisure class, for whom abstaining from productive work was part of the deal. Laboring was “a mark of inferiority” for the upper crusters, Veblen writes, and “to be accounted unworthy of man in his best estate.” Veblen, famous for coining “conspicuous consumption,” said that the elite also engaged in “conspicuous leisure.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like being BUSY an awful lot and I get some POSITIVE benefits out of it such as:

• I don’t have time to worry about the thoughts that race through my head. We all have those pestering worries that go through our head. When I’m busy, I usually don’t even think about them because I’m focusing my mind on something else.
• I sleep better. Personally, when I’m busy and my time is occupied all day, I fall asleep easier. For some people, being busy might keep them up, but for me, when I’ve had a “busy” day my mind seems to slow down and let me sleep better
• I feel motivated to get more work done. When I’m busy I tend to get more organized (probably out of necessity) and try to get more work done while I’m motivated to do so.
• I feel more self-confidence. When I get a lot done in a day, it makes me feel good about myself and helps me feel like I got a lot done (even if that’s just a facade).
• I get a charge from being busy. When I’m busy, I feel like all of my senses are heightened and I just have a sense of positive momentum throughout the day. I want to keep being busy because I like how it feels.

But, all too often the NEGATIVE side of busy sneaks up on me and smacks me across the face:

When I’m too busy, I’m not present. While I often enjoy being busy, the collateral damage is not always worth the effort. When I’m too busy, I miss the “little” moments that make life more interesting and fun.

• When I’m too busy, I don’t prioritize effectively. Priorities are how we separate the things that we need to do, versus ones that we should. They keep us in line and on track. But when I am too busy, everything seems like it needs to be done. I lose track of what matters, versus what can wait.
• When I’m too busy, I lose track of my vision. Busyness is my way of getting the “little things” done, but when I get too focused on the little things, I lose track of my reason…my WHY.
• When I’m too busy, I eat like shit and forget to take care of myself. When I’m overly busy, I’ll find every excuse to skip a workout, or swing by for fast food, because I “need the calories to keep going.”
• When I’m too busy, I don’t take the time to THINK. Thinking deeply and clearly is a skill that comes with practice. When I’m busy, I have to deal with floods of information, and I’m responsible for opening and closing the dam. If I don’t stop and take the time to think about which pieces of information to let through the floodgates, I can become inundated with “worthless thought.”

So what’s a busy-loving, hustle-minded entrepreneur to do? Busyness is so attractive, yet it has serious negative consequences when left unchecked. In fact, I believe that busyness just might be the one thing that’s killing your success…even if you don’t see it.

DEEP WORK

I believe that one of the “killer apps” of the 2000’s for small business owners and entrepreneurs is a concept called “Deep Work” that was originally introduced by productivity expert and professor Cal Newport, who published a book titled Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World.

In the book, Newport explains that there are two types of work.

• SHALLOW WORK, which he defines as “non-cognitive, logistical,” or minor, duties performed in a state of distraction, and DEEP WORK, which he defines as “professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”
• Most people spend their days doing shallow work, and it’s often these low-value tasks that keep us from more important, higher-value work. For example: ave you ever been trying to focus on a big project and been distracted by a trivial email that you felt you needed to respond to immediately? That’s shallow work!
• Obviously, it is incredibly difficult to completely remove these types of distractions from your life, especially in the entrepreneurial environment. But, there’s a major reason why we’re more attracted to these types of tasks: they’re quick and easy and give us a sense of accomplishment. In the long term, however, they’re holding us back from bigger career and life goals.

So, what can we do about it?

Deep work isn’t about working harder or longer – it’s about working BETTER. Ideally, deep work is about transforming your workdays from a random series of reactive events and chaotic busyness into a well-oiled schedule that allows you to prioritize the highest-value tasks. Deep work is more than just a set of good habits; it’s a skill that needs to be learned. Newport mentions in his book, “the ability to perform deep work well is a skill that must be trained. It’s like playing the guitar—something you wouldn’t expect to be good at, unless you actually practiced and trained for a long period of time. It’s important to emphasize that because a lot of people think about deep work more like a habit, such as flossing their teeth.”

That might sound scary, but it isn’t. Here are four simple steps you can take to begin a deep work regimen today:

Step 1: Schedule time for deep work

Reclaiming your focus means exercising control over your schedule. Start planning out your weeks and block out sections of time for deep work. How you do it is completely up to you. Some people prefer to alternate between sessions of deep work and more menial tasks on a single day, while others will block out multiple days in a row in order to achieve serious concentration.

The most important thing to remember is that you’re training yourself to reach a state of deep concentration, so you need to be disciplined in sticking to your routine.

Step 2: Create a distraction-free environment

Distractions come in all shapes and sizes, from phones to co-workers to kids—and you’re going to want to get rid of them all!

If you do your work in an open plan office, consider booking a private room or working from home if you can. If the internet is a problem for you, use a program like “Freemind” to control how much time you can spend on certain websites, or block them altogether. Stick to pen and paper, or even go to the local library (where I write much of this newsletter each month) if you have to, just make sure you have a clear and calm environment that facilitates deep concentration.

It also helps to associate a particular location with deep work, for example a different office, or even a completely different building.

Step 3: Embrace rest and relaxation

Deep work isn’t just about cutting out distractions so you can focus on big projects. It’s also about getting a good night’s rest and turning up to work refreshed and relaxed. When you leave the office, avoid the temptation of answering emails or working late into the night.

It’s important to give your body and brain time to recuperate. Instead, spend your free time exploring your hobbies or focusing on your family and friends.

Step 4: Make yourself accountable

Deep work is about more than “getting Zen” at the office. It’s about improving your productivity, especially when it comes to high-value goals. If you don’t get anything finished, then there’s no point in upending your current work schedule. Create metrics to measure your productivity and, if you can, hold weekly review sessions to keep track of your progress.

Deep work is so important, yet so hard to achieve. I believe these tips will help you, and Newport offers many more if you’re interested. What is clear to me, is that this is a journey not a destination. I suspect I will be working to implement these ideas for the rest of my life. The goal is to get started, get better, and do the work that matters.