In today’s blog post about building discipline, I would like to talk about Intensive Focus.
A simpler way to say that is, “when at work, work all the time you work”.
Or “bum in chair, words on screen”.
Many of us travel several hours to go to our workplaces and spend 8 – 9 hours at our offices.
An average individual lives for around 70 years.
He starts work at the age of 20 and goes on until 60.
That’s around 40 years of professional work where he/she spends close to 8 hours every day, not including the time taken to travel or other activities that are indirectly related to work.
Almost 1/3rd of our life goes away in work and another 1/3rd goes away in sleep.
But for most people, work doesn’t end at around the 8 hour mark.
For starters, we have a culture of managers who reward people for the hours they work after regular office hours.
You also have respectable CEOs commenting illogical things like Narayana Murthy recommending individuals work 70 hours a week.
Elon Musk also set an expectation that employees should work 12 hours a day for 6 days a week like the way it is in China.
The work culture today is designed in such a way that professionals are incentivized when they over-extend their working hours.
People get appreciations, bonuses, etc when they work after hours.
People who leave on time get underappreciated.
The reality is that most people who work after hours, and burn the so-called midnight oil – are just appearing to be productive and not actually productive.
Out of the 12 – 13 hours an individual attempts to spend at the office, an hour or 2 would be spent in the cafeteria, smoking a few cigarettes and engaging in mindless chats.
This is the reality in most offices.
Not all individuals who start and leave work on time may necessarily be productive.
They may also be doing the same things like spending idle time in the cafeteria, engaging in mindless chats, etc.
But that’s where we should all start being more mindful.
As an entrepreneur, I’ve overworked, burned the midnight oil. But during those times when I burned the midnight oil, I wouldn’t be able to sustain productivity for several hours together.
There have also been times when I have been super sensitive about time and tried to be focussed and sharp with the work I did.
The best results have come when I was super sensitive to times and tried to be focussed and sharp with the work I did.
I’ll give you an example…
There was a time when I would start work at 9 AM (it may oscillate to 9:15 AM).
The moment I started, I would put my phone in flight mode. (This wasn’t an era of 2 Factor authentications).
I would set a timer and continuously work for 1.5 hours before taking a break.
And I’d do this repeatedly throughout the day until around 4:15 PM.
At around 4:15, I would pack my bags and leave to attend a Yoga Class, and subsequently finish my dinner and then return back at around 7:30 PM for another 2 hours of focussed work and calls.
There would be no Youtube, No browsing of news, no nonsense chats.
Just focussed intensive work.
Or simply put, “bum in chair, words on screen”.
If you had asked me to start my work at 9 AM and expected me to work until 9:30 PM without the break in between, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.
As the world was recovering from COVID, I started returning to office and began to operate with a similar schedule of 9 AM – 9:30 PM.
There would be barely anyone at the offices. I would be present at the office all day.
And I couldn’t help but kill some of the time. There was no yoga to do in the evenings. I would just stay at the office, use the phone, have conversations or go for walks.
As humans, we can’t sustain our focus for long periods. Therefore, we are prone to distractions.
So when you are expected to work 13 hours a day, there is little chance that you’ll be able to sustain your focus.
You may be able to do it for a day or 2.
But not beyond that.
Instead, we should understand our reality that we can only sustain our focus for a few hours and design our working schedule and environment to ensure that we work all the time that we work.
If your goal is to put in 8 hours a day of solid focus at work, divide your day into two and put in 2 solid 4 hour sessions…
Where you work 2 hours in one session, take a short break and then work another 2 hours and take a long break.
And then come back renewed for another solid 4 hour session.
You’ll get more done and the output from your efforts will be more fruitful.
Designing a deliberate environment like this is not easy, but we have to be thoughtful.
If you can’t do a 4 + 4, can you do a 6 + 2 or a 5 + 3 or whatever works for you.
But whatever it is, there needs to be intensive focus.
So stop burning the midnight oil.
Instead, commit yourself to deliberate intensive focus for several hours together.
Thank you.
This is Harry Ramsay, signing off from Authentic Discipline.
PS: This is the 9th blog post that I am writing, and I ended up writing for 30 odd minutes and crossed around 900 words. The flow might actually be starting.
Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash