Finding Your Focus Through ‘Deep Work’
It happens all the time. You start out the day with great intentions to get that financial report done or to work on your marketing plan only to find it’s 3pm and you’ve barely scratched the surface. Every time you sit down to work on something, a ping, ding or dong stops you in your tracks.
Social media and email are our biggest distractors, according to Cal Newport, author of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. While turning off devices may seem a simple solution, Newport says the problem runs much deeper. Our attraction to digital devices has created a permanent fracturing of our attention, affecting our ability to maintain focus and be present.
Cultivating our ability to focus means engaging in a practice Newport calls “deep work.”
“Deep work is when you focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task,” he says. “You work on it as hard as your brain is capable for an extended amount of time without any distractions.” Working on something while in “deep work” mode will produce much better results than working with distracted, fragmented attention – what most of us do every day. “Most people don’t go five or ten minutes without glancing at their phone or inbox,” says Newport.
Engaging in deep work isn’t as simple as setting aside a chunk of time to work on something. “You have to treat your attention with a lot of respect, like a professional athlete might treat their body,” says Newport. This also means training your brain to focus.
In order to engage in deep work, Newport says you need to develop a few habits:
Block out time.
Schedule time on your calendar to work on something. If you’re engaging in a cognitively demanding task, Newport recommends no less than a 90 minute chunk. Once it’s in your calendar, treat that time like an important meeting or appointment. If someone asks to meet at noon and that’s in the middle of your deep-work time, schedule the meeting for another time.
Embrace boredom.
“Be wary of the habit of never being bored,” says Newport. Many of us fall into the habit of whipping out our phones every time we feel a little bit bored. “Your brain loses its tolerance for boredom and lack of stimuli which means when it comes time to do deep work it’s going to have a hard time staying focused,” says Newport. Improving your ability to focus means training your brain to be a little bored. Try it next time you’re standing in the line at a bank. Reduce the urge to whip out your phone and be OK with being a little bit bored.
Productive meditation.
Train your brain to focus by thinking of a single problem that you want to solve and hold that problem in your mind for a set period of time. Newport says this works best if you go for a walk. Just as in mindful meditation, when you see your mind wandering from the problem, notice it and bring your mind back to the problem that you’re working on.
Adopt a zero-tolerance policy.
When you’re engaged in deep work, don’t allow for distractions. Even glancing briefly at your inbox will reduce your cognitive capacity to focus.
Prepare for deep work.
Just as a long-distance runner stretches her muscles before a run, you may need to adopt some rituals to prepare for deep work. Your deep-work ritual could be as simple as cleaning off your desk and hanging a “Do Not Disturb” sign on your door — anything that tells your brain that it’s time to shut off the rest of the world and focus on the task at hand.
Know the outcome.
Having a fixed outcome that you’re striving for lets your brain know what it’s supposed to be working on and will pool its resources towards that task.
The ’20 percent less rule.’
Whatever deadline you set for yourself, cut it by 20 percent. “Now you have to scramble with as much intensity to get this thing done,” says Newport. Adding a sense of urgency to the task is like doing interval training for your mind. It forces you to work just a little bit harder.
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Overloaded And Overwhelmed? Four Things You Can Control When Your Workload Is Out Of Control Our research indicates a terrifying 43% of knowledge workers do..
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Jun 28, 2019Successful People
13 Difficult Things Highly Successful People Learn To Do Young To invent a product, turn a profit or start a business is to be accomplished. To..
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Jun 14, 2019Career Summer Checkup
A Career Summer Checkup For Professional Growth Whether you’re graduating college or gearing up for your first fiscal year-end performance conversation, the summer months represent..
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May 31, 2019Thrive At Work
6 Steps To Unleash Your Inner Polymath And Thrive At Work In a previous article I explored some of the virtues of striving for a..
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May 24, 2019Successful and Happy
The One Daily Action That Will Make You More Successful And Happier At Work In our fast-paced world where we have more to do than..
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May 10, 2019How to Evaluate, Accept,…
Congratulations! You got the job. Now for the hard part: deciding whether to accept it or not. How should you assess the salary as well..
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May 3, 2019Great Employees
What It Takes To Be A Great Employee: The Parable Of The Oranges Being a great employee pays off with better positions, higher pay, and..
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Apr 25, 2019Your first Job
10 Essential Strategies To Succeed In Your First Job Congratulations, graduate! After the exhausting and stressful process of finishing school, searching for and landing your..
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Apr 19, 2019Starting a New Job?
When You Start a New Job, Pay Attention to These 5 Aspects of Company Culture When you join an organization, you have a short window..
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Apr 12, 2019How To Escape Procrastination
How To Escape The Procrastination Doom Loop When you imagine a highly productive person, you likely think of someone who focuses effortlessly on the job..
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Apr 5, 2019Exceptional Employees
8 Clues That a Candidate Will be an Exceptional Employee Over the past 40 years, I have reviewed at least 30,000 resumes and LinkedIn profiles..
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Mar 22, 2019Increase Employee Retention
4 Smart Ways to Increase Employee Retention Keeping your employees once you have them is a thorny problem in the staffing services industry. The difficulty..
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Mar 15, 2019Things Happen!
Here's How To Recover From A Career Setback Whether you’ve botched an interview question, cancelled an important meeting last-minute or missed a typo in an..
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Feb 27, 2019Sabotaging your job search?
8 Ways You're Sabotaging Your Job Search Following certain best practices can make or break you in your quest for the right job. Some bad..
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Feb 1, 2019Your Social Media Profile
Here’s what recruiters look for on a candidate’s social media profile Maintaining the right balance between being professional and being yourself on social media can..
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Jan 25, 2019Effective Job Interview
How to conduct an effective job interview As the employment market improves and candidates have more options, hiring the right person for the job has..
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Jan 18, 2019Things You Should Never…
14 Things You Should Never, Ever Say In A Job Interview It’s always intimidating to interview for a new job, whether you’re fresh out of..
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Jan 11, 2019Reasons for Leaving?
How To Answer Why You Left (Or Want to Leave) Your Employer If you want the job, don't reveal this. Job interviews are designed to..
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Jan 4, 2019A good LinkedIn Summary
Here's how to write a LinkedIn summary that could help you land your dream job, according to a marketing director at LinkedIn You might approach..
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Dec 14, 2018Stay Focused Through the…
14 Ways to Stay Focused at Work Through the Holidays We’re in the midst of the holiday season, and as you try to juggle parties,..
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Nov 23, 2018Help Your New Hires…
3 Ways You Can Help Your New Hires to Succeed Filling a vacant position is expensive, and unless you do these three things, it's liable..
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Nov 15, 2018A Successful Meeting
Three Ways To Prevent Someone From Stealing Your Spotlight In A Meeting We've all been there at one point or another. You're in a meeting,..
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Oct 26, 2018Recruitment in Cyprus
Recruitment in Cyprus - Thoughts and Ideas from Advance Career Team Read the detailed interview published on TopJobsCyprus website and share your comments and ideas!..
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Oct 19, 2018Find Career Clarity!
How To Find Career Clarity Using Three Top Career Theories Feeling like you need to make a career pivot because your job isn’t a good..
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Oct 12, 2018Integrators VS Segmentors
Are your employees integrators or segmentors? An organization has both integrators and segmentors. Being a segmentor is a tough ask. If you choose to be..
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Sep 21, 2018What Motivates You to…
What Motivates You to Work? That paycheck will never be big enough if it's the only reason you're going to work. Each of us respond..
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Sep 14, 2018Update Your Resume
Updating Your Résumé Might Mean Updating Yourself It seems like a total no-brainer: you should update your résumé and online profiles when you are job..
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Sep 7, 2018Tap Into Your Motivation!
Putting Yourself In Drive: How To Tap Into Your Motivation The one common component in every great success story is motivation: an ever-elusive elixir that..
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Aug 31, 2018Enhancing your job search
How To Bounce Back When The Job Search Gets You Down With a dream job in mind, an updated résumé in hand and responses to..
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Aug 17, 2018Social media can cost…
When 'What Happens In Vegas' Ends Up In Your Job Search What happens in Vegas really doesn’t stay there. That “funny” picture about that..
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Aug 3, 2018Emotional Intelligence at Workplace
How To Develop More Emotionally Intelligent Employees In the quest to develop leaders who will foster a culture of equity and inclusion in the workplace,..
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Jul 27, 2018Are you ready to…
The Difference Between People Who Succeed and People Who Flop Successful people charge forward, take calculated risks, and come out on top because of it...
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Jul 6, 2018Hiring the right people?
5 Steps to Hiring the Right People for Your Business "Hire slow, fire fast" is great advice, but it's not always easy to follow. The..
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Jun 29, 2018Ready for Entrepreneurial Success?
4 Entry-Level Jobs That Will Prep You for Entrepreneurial Success Success is a journey, not a destination, so think hard about where to start. Entrepreneurship..
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Jun 22, 2018Simple Work-Life Balance
Work-Life Balance Is Simple. To Succeed at Work, Get a Life. With the right balance of health and business, entrepreneurs can maximize productivity. The Organization..
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Jun 8, 2018Back On Track
How to get back on track when you’re having an unproductive day A rocky start shouldn’t dictate your entire workday. Do these things to reverse..
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May 4, 2018Strategic Workforce Tools
Your Workforce Tools Are More Strategic Than You Might Think This is not a typical article about attracting talented job candidates or retention — while..
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Apr 20, 2018Engagement Strategy
Don’t Let ‘Meaning’ Be Missing From Your Engagement Strategy Meaning is one of the five keys in building employee engagement and it may be the..
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Apr 5, 2018Inclusion in the Workplace
Inclusion Doesn’t Mean Including Everything and Everyone Inclusiveness is not about thought policing. It’s also not about turning everyone into a liberal. It’s a normal..
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Mar 30, 2018Inspire Change In Your…
4 Ways To Inspire Change In Your Employees Have you ever listened to a speech that inspired you so much, you were ready to make..
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Mar 23, 2018Employees Feel and Act…
7 Ways to Incent Employees to Feel and Act as Owners Building accountability into your business culture is a leadership process. It can't be driven..
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Mar 16, 2018Don’t Shuffle People Into…
Don't Shuffle People Into the Wrong Job Just Because They're Already on the Payroll You grow your company by putting proven performers where you need..
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Feb 26, 2018Minimise Workplace Negativity
Tips for Minimizing Workplace Negativity To Deal with Negativity in the Workplace, Use These 9 Tips Nothing affects employee morale more insidiously than persistent workplace..
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Feb 23, 2018Leadership Role but Unprepared…
You Were Promoted To A Leadership Role But You Feel Unprepared - Don't Panic You’ve been at the job for years. As much as you..
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Feb 16, 2018Fail at Switching Jobs?
This Is the No. 1 Reason Why People Fail at Switching Jobs (and What to Do About It) There's a reason changing careers is so..
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Feb 2, 2018A Technique To Get…
Didn't Get Your Dream Job? This 1 Technique Could Get You a Second Chance Every job seeker experiences this at least once, if not several..
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Jan 26, 2018Prepare new employees for…
The Best Way to Set New Employees Up for Success Create an onboarding program that's both meaningful and memorable Congratulations; you've just hired a terrific..
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Jan 19, 2018First Hour, Day, Week,…
Do This In Your First Hour, Day, Week, And Month Of Your New Job Getting settled into your new job is the ultimate act of..
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Jan 12, 2018Make 2018 a Productive…
11 Expert Tips To Make 2018 Your Most Productive Year Ever Could eating cake for breakfast and never listening to your voicemail help you get..
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Jan 5, 20187 Ways Modest Leadership…
7 Ways Modest Leadership Increases Team Success When we imagine the traits of successful leaders, whether they are managers, high level executives, CEO's or owners..
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Dec 22, 2017Career Goals for 2018
How to Set Your Career Goals for 2018 and Achieve Them Each New Year offers the opportunity for a fresh start—and that includes your career...
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Dec 15, 2017Employee stress during Christmas
Managing employee stress during the festive period More than half of employees feel stressed in the weeks leading up to Christmas, with most calling for..
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Dec 1, 2017Appreciating your employees
How to Avoid the No. 1 Reason People Leave Their Jobs William James, the father of psychology, stated that the most fundamental psychological need is..
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Nov 24, 2017HR Function in 2024
Will You Be Leading an HR Function in 2024? Here are five things to look at to examine and determine if you’ve got what it..
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Nov 10, 2017Your Impact at Work!
What Is Your Impact? We keep throwing this word around called "impact." Do you know what your impact is and how would you define, discover,..
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Oct 27, 2017Inspiring Career Advice
LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner's 3 Best Pieces of Career Advice Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn's CEO, has had nothing short of a successful career. After graduating from..
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Sep 15, 2017Lost your Job?
Nine Things You Should and Shouldn't Do If You Lose Your Job Most of us wouldn’t think to associate the words "joblessness" and "fun," but..
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Sep 8, 2017Why Risk Is A…
Why Risk Is A Necessary Component To A Successful Career - And How To Balance Risk With Reward Taking at least some risk is necessary..
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Aug 16, 2017Write your first CV
It's all about potential: how to write a CV with no work experience Follow these tips to stand out among competing candidates – from research..
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Aug 10, 2017Friends and Career
Being Too Busy for Friends Won’t Help Your Career Friendship matters. Everything we do to succeed in our careers is improved when we’re supported by..
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Aug 4, 2017Is it time to…
The Best Ways to Reward Employees. Having an effective reward program in place can help solve many of your HR issues. Every company needs a..
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Jul 28, 2017Burnout: exhausted or lonely?
Burnout at Work Isn’t Just About Exhaustion. It’s Also About Loneliness More and more people are feeling tired and lonely at work. In analyzing the..
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Jul 21, 2017People don’t take HR…
People Don’t Take HR Seriously; Here’s Why That’s Dangerous Legacy beliefs like being the bad guy and a lack of strategic vision isolates HR, and..
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Jun 30, 2017Career Development
Think Strategically About Your Career Development In a world where the average employee sends and receives 122 emails per day and attends an average of..
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Jun 16, 2017Diversity and Inclusion
Diversity Doesn’t Stick Without Inclusion Leaders have long recognized that a diverse workforce of women, people of color, and LGBT individuals confers a competitive edge..
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Jun 2, 2017Advance Your Career
How To Advance Your Career In A Crappy Entry-Level Job Yes, you can still bring yourself one step closer to snagging that dream job even..
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May 8, 2017Interview Preparation
Interviews are generally regarded as the primary decision-making event in any recruitment process. Regardless of your academic credentials or career thus far, it is crucial..
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May 2, 2017
Employee Burnout
What causes burnout and how it can affect both the employees and the organisation How HR Can Help Prevent Employee Burnout An engaged workforce. It's..
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Apr 3, 2017
Interview questions you have…
Studies have shown that structured interviewing is more than twice as reliable a predictor of future employee performance than unstructured interviewing. That is why most..
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Mar 19, 2012
Job Search Tips That…
Cyprus unemployment has been steadily increasing monthly since 2008 and is getting closer to double digits (January 2012 Eurostat figure – 9.6%). However there are..
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Mar 21, 2025
How HR-Driven Training and…
Training and development within an organization serve as a cornerstone for cultivating employee engagement, driving organizational progress, and strengthening employer branding. As companies navigate an..
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Feb 28, 2025
More than Just a…
Employee appreciation is often thought of as a simple “thank you” or a quick pat on the back, but the true impact of showing recognition..
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Dec 20, 2024
Nailing the Job Interview:…
Job seekers today face an increasingly competitive job market, where finding the right fit isn’t just about having the right skills—it’s about making the right..