Are You Bored? Perfect, You're Ready for Deep Work
“To simply wait and be bored has become a novel experience in modern life, but from the perspective of concentration training, it’s incredibly valuable.”
― Cal Newport, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
How is being bored a good thing? Didn’t we spend a lot of effort in our youth trying to avoid being bored? Now, with inputs aplenty, finding time to even think about being bored seems impossible. However, what does being bored really mean? Those few quiet moments in a shower when you are doing nothing, is that being bored? Usually, we find those respites produce a flurry of ideas and potential solutions. These moments of being bored can be our most productive, and lead to doing truly deep work.
What is deep work
Before we say you’re ready for deep work, an explanation may be in order. Cal Newport, who wrote an excellent book on Deep Work, aptly named Deep Work by Cal Newport, describes it this way on his website.
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. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship.
Focused work is when we can solve for the most vexing of problems. This is a time when planning for the future can lead to innovative approaches to getting things done. Deep work is about getting the real items that truly matter captured in a way that action can be taken. This may be a process document, this could be a meeting agenda and the supporting information that goes with it, or building an action plan for sales or team development. Those are the critical pieces of work that need to happen, much more so than any group of emails.
The art of allowing yourself to be bored
“Mom, I’m bored.” Have you ever heard that? Or, perhaps you remember saying it as a child. Who would have thought that we would one day crave that state? In a world that can have every minute filled with something that keeps your attention. We find it difficult to stand in a short line and not immediately grab our phone. It’s a perfect time to grab a quick update on email, a social media site, or check the news or sports scores. It is actually an even better time to allow your mind to wander, as just those few moments can make a world of difference in creativity, idea generation, or letting your body and mind relax (which will lead to the first two things).
Email is not real work, most of the time
The challenge for most retail leaders, and I find myself in this position often, is that we confuse email with the work that we really need to do to make a difference. The pile of unread emails is such a strong magnet for attention it is nearly impossible to ignore, even for short periods of time. Have you ever thought to yourself, ‘I’ll knock out just a few emails and get back to that other thing?’ Suddenly, you realize you’ve been sucked into the email hole for more than an hour. Yikes. This is one reason I address email as a topic so often.
Instead of getting stuck in your inbox, how can you make more time for planning the upcoming week, or building an agenda for a conference call you going to conduct in the next day or two? Could you spend more time building a development plan for one of your managers, or use the time to engage in the development process itself? Deep work could also be your own development. Read an article, make notes, and plan the action you will take from the learnings. Deep work doesn’t have to be lengthy or sound as academic as it might to some. Think of deep work as activity that is going to make a difference beyond completing something in the moment. To use our comparison from above, email reduces the badge count on your mailbox. Sure, it may answer some questions, but rarely does email work last beyond the moment you press ‘send’. Taking time for the development of one of your managers will last for (potentially) a lifetime. Spending time on your own self-development will have equally lasting effects. This is important, deep, work.
Being bored is a mindset. Ultimately, this is still a matter of time management and allowing space to do work that will make a difference. Moments of being bored can be the inspiration for future deep work projects that will require more than just passing time in a line, in the shower, or sitting quietly on the couch. Capitalize on those precious seconds and then translate it into time dedicated to fleshing out the ideas into actionable items that can, and will, make a difference for you and your team. Being bored doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
How can you let yourself be bored and lead to completing deep work?
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