Let's get practical #2: Deep Work & Organization

[Raphael]

Quote

The world runs on results, right? Whether it’s business, or money, or career, or fitness — or even your internal mood. All that stuff is a result. Everything that you’re looking for in life is a result.

So, if you can’t do this, if you’re not a results-maker, and you don’t have this in your pedigree — to be able to go out there and achieve extraordinary results, uncommon results — then, basically, you’re fucked in life.

Leo Gura, How To Get Shit Done - The Inner Game Of Being A Results-Maker, Jul 12, 2015

 

This journal is going to be my productivity journal where I will report everything related to deep work & organization in my life. As building discipline and becoming productive and highly focused is a difficult skill to develop I'm probably going to be journaling for two years in order to successfully build and integrate productivity habits.

What Is Work?

I qualify work as any task that requires a physical or mental concentration effort greater than mundane tasks. There are different types of work with different intensities: low, medium, or high. Low-intensity work requires small efforts that can be done by most people. High-intensity work pushes someone's physical or cognitive capabilities to their limit, creates new value, improves skills, and is hard to replicate.

My Work And Their Intensities

Here are the different types of work that I do and their intensities. Everything that's above low can have subsets and include low and medium work intensities.

• Meditation: High
• Weight Lifting: Medium/High
• Wordpress development: Low/Medium
• Programming: High
• Reading: Low/Medium

My Current Working State

• I'm really messy, but it could be worse
• I have difficulties to concentrate and often get caught up in thoughts when I'm working so it makes me stop in between
• I procrastinate a lot
• I'm very lazy
• I have a high amount of random thoughts every day that causes me to be very distracted
• I have irregular waking up and sleep hours which causes me to be druggy in the morning and demotivate me to work
• Realistically I only work a few hours per day (1 - 4 hours) because of the above issues

My Planned Organization

1. Wake up between 5:30 AM and 6:00 AM
2. Do positive affirmations
3. Go to the gym between 6:30 AM and 7:00 AM on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. I will maybe change my organization and workouts in the future in order to exercise only three times per week
4. Deep work five days per week on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday for at least 6 hours per day for a total of at least 30 hours/week
5. Read every day except on Sunday for 30 minutes to 1 hour
6. Do positive affirmations
7. Go to sleep between 9:00 PM and 9:30 PM

The rest of the time will be dedicated to basic necessities, relaxation, and introspection

Note: As I'm a freelancer clients come to me randomly and it sometimes breaks my organization. I will do everything to respect this agenda as much as possible, but I know that inevitably I will have to be flexible at some moments to answer some clients' needs.

My Objectives

• Deep work for at least 30 hours/week
• Build discipline
• Build concentration
• Learn how to rapidly create flow states
• Clear my mind by concentrating on my work
• Create a powerful organization system
• Correctly integrate stage blue and orange healthy values (organization, discipline, hard work, productivity, and concentration)
• Become a result-maker

What I Will Share/Report Here

• Time of waking up and going to bed every day
• Total working hours for each deep working day with a little note for each of my work sessions
• Reading time
• Action steps that I take to improve my results
• Organization & Productivity resources
• Personal insights on organization & productivity

I'm, right now, at this moment, and for the rest of my life, taking 100% responsibility to be highly focused and disciplined in my organization and my deep working sessions in order to accomplish and materialize what I really want in life.

It's time to generate incredible results.

Edited April 6, 2020 by Raphael

[Raphael]

Eliminating Mobile Noises

I had my first smartphone three years ago. Before that, I was only using a simple Nokia phone with no internet on it, so I was more protected from all the distractions compared to other people. However, when this phone died I got my first smartphone and I quickly experienced how dangerous smartphones are for the mind. They are literally ADHD creating machines as they bombard us non-stop with notification and all the entertainment that we want so that our mind stays busy all day, which is dangerous because our brains need empty space in order to recover and process new information. So I installed various apps & games that robbed me of my concentration, I would use them more and more and the quality of my work would decrease more and more until I finally got sick of it.

Two months ago I installed StayFocused on my phone and it was one of my best decisions ever. I chose the paid version because it had features that would allow me to completely block the toxic usage of my phone. I take the decision to block almost everything: Chrome, Firefox, Facebook, Youtube, many games, etc. and only kept a few communication apps like Skype, WhatApps, and GMail. This is far enough and there is really no need to watch videos, go on social media, play video games 24/7, all of this is bullshit and very dangerous. However, I still had one problem which was that I would continue to install new apps in order to fill my neediness. To counter this issue I take another hard decision and choose to block the Play Store so that I cannot install any new app on my phone.

I activated the strict mode on StayFocused, I cannot unblock the blocked apps and I cannot uninstall StayFocused. All the distracting stuff is blocked until next year. The only way to revert this is to completely reset my phone, but I don't want to do this, I'm too lazy.

I think that the guys behind StayFocused or other similar apps should receive more praise because they are saving many lives from ADHD.

[Raphael]

6 April 2020

• Wake Up Time: 6:50 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 9:30 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Deep Work Sessions:

• 3:10 PM - 4:10 PM: I did some code documentation, created a pull request, and merged it. They were a lot of noises outside that distracted me. I stayed focused as much as possible but was a little agitated. I wasn't in a flow state.

Total Deep Work Hours: 1 hour (objective at least 6 hours)

Total Reading Time: 37 minutes (objective 30 minutes - 1 hour)

Edited April 6, 2020 by Raphael

[Raphael]

7 April 2020

• Wake Up Time: 6:00 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 9:40 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Deep Work Sessions:

• 8:42 AM - 9:44 AM: I did some programming and read some documentation. I felt the urge to distract myself at some moments but bring the focus back on the work. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 2 minutes
• 10:10 AM - 11:27 AM: I stay focused most of the time, but got distracted by my depressed grandma who started to cry. I got some negative thoughts and then choose to completely lock myself in the room to avoid noises and negative influences. I tried to work a little too fast. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 17 minutes
• 11:40 AM - 12:20 AM: I had some parasite thoughts. I still tried to work too fast, I noticed that I lost at least 1 hour in the previous session that could have been avoided by just slowing down and focusing my attention on an element. Deep Work Duration: 40 minutes
• 1:35 PM - 4:02 PM: Good session. I was focused but had trouble solving the problem. I had a few negative thoughts. Deep Work Duration: 2 hours 27 minutes
• 4:18 PM - 5:28 PM: I didn't deep worked a lot as I worked on multiple tasks and was communicating with a client. I shift between Skype communication, Wordpress support, and a little of programming. I maybe did only 30 minutes of deep work. Deep Work Duration: 30 minutes

I worked more than I expected today, but I almost did 6 hours of deep work. It was easier than I expected.

Total Deep Work Duration: 5 hours 56 minutes (objective at least 6 hours)

Total Reading Time: 33 minutes (objective 30 minutes - 1 hour)

[Raphael]

8 April 2020

• Wake Up Time: 6:00 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 10:10 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Deep Work Sessions:

• No Deep Work Today

Total Deep Work Duration: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes)

Total Reading Time: 30 minutes (objective 30 minutes - 1 hour)

Edited April 9, 2020 by Raphael

[Raphael]

9 April 2020

• Wake Up Time: 6:00 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 9:46 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Deep Work Sessions:

• 8:59 AM - 10:24 AM: I moved forward in the work. I was a little agitated because of all the outside noise and movement. I got interrupted a few times. I tried to go too fast. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 25 minutes
• 10:41 AM - 11:30 AM: Good session. Deep Work Duration: 49 minutes
• 11:40 AM - 12:30 AM: Good session. Deep Work Duration: 50 minutes
• 1:36 PM - 3:02 PM: Good session. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 26 minutes
• 3:15 PM - 4:49 PM: Good session. I read an SEO report and ended up with a little of coding. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 34 minutes

I noticed that I'm often afraid of being unproductive. I stress out because of that and I feel it in my abdomen where I have some burning feelings and agitations. I also often have some background thoughts noises, they are not strong, but they are here when I work, they are completely random (often negative) thoughts. I need to find a solution to improve my focus and reduce my mind noises, I think positive affirmations and more deep work practice will help.

• Total Deep Work Duration: 6 hours 04 minutes (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 37 minutes (objective 30 minutes - 1 hour)

[Raphael]

10 April 2020

• Wake Up Time: 6:45 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 9:30 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Deep Work Sessions:

• 01:48 PM - 03:20 PM: I did the work, but wasn't highly focused because of negative thoughts caused by my inability to deal with external my environment. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 38 minutes
• 04:04 PM - 05:17 PM: I was more focused, but still feeling a little sad. I did some project planning and started to initialize the new project. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 13 minutes

I slacked off today, I woke up late because I didn't sleep well and I also got lazy because of that. The negative environment didn't help me either.

• Total Deep Work Duration: 2 hours 51 minutes (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 40 minutes (objective 30 minutes - 1 hour)

[Raphael]

@Cykaaaa Thank you

[Raphael]

11 April 2020

• Wake Up Time: 6:00 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 10:00 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Deep Work Sessions:

• 09:00 AM - 10:08 AM: Good session, I continued on the initialization of the project. I still often have random thoughts in the back of my mind while working. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 8 minutes
• 10:24 AM - 12:26 AM: I created the application routes skeleton. I had some random thoughts unrelated to the project. Deep Work Duration: 2 hours 2 minutes
• 01:35 PM - 04:13 PM: I did a lot of stuff and was focused. Deep Work Duration: 2 hours 38 minutes
• 04:38 PM - 06:17 PM: I completed the project initialization. It took more time than excepted and I was completely drained at the end. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 39 minutes

I worked a lot today and I have been highly productive. I was a little exhausted at the end of the day, but I'm very satisfied with my results.

• Total Deep Work Duration: 7 hours 27 minutes (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 30 minutes - 1 hour)

[Raphael]

12 April 2020

• Wake Up Time: 07:00 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 09:37 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Deep Work Sessions:

• No Deep Work Today

 

• Total Deep Work Duration: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes)

[Raphael]

Distinguishing Deep Work Vs Other Work

I spend a lot of time today setting up and configuring my new environment and doing some utility tasks. I quickly switched between many tasks and one thing that's sure is that all of this is not deep work and doesn't enter in this journal objective, however, that's still work.

Thereby, I want to reframe my objective because work can include maintenance stuff too. The new objective of this journal is to work for at least 6 hours per day / 30 hours per week, it includes deep work and other kinds of work like maintenance stuff, networking, etc. I will now distinguish deep work and other kinds of work in my summaries.

[Raphael]

13 April 2020

• Wake Up Time: 06:00 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 09:30 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• 10:02 AM - 1:00 PM: I configured my new work environment. I quickly switched between tasks. Work Duration: 2 hours 58 minutes
• 02:40 PM - 02:56 PM: I tried to fix an issue with my AWS account, but didn't succeed. I will have a more detailed look tomorrow. Work Duration: 16 minutes

Deep Work Sessions:

• 04:10 PM - 06:09 PM: I worked on an HTML view, I wrote its content in English and did the French translation. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 59 minutes

Getting started in the morning was a little difficult today. I was quite lazy and delayed my work, but I still managed to work for 5 hours 13 minutes which is quite close to my daily objective.

• Total Work Duration: 5 hours 13 minutes, including 1 hour 59 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 47 minutes (objective 30 minutes - 1 hour)

Edited April 13, 2020 by Raphael

[Raphael]

14 April 2020

• Wake Up Time: 07:00 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 09:28 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• 9:20 AM - 10:17 AM: I reported notes from a book to my commonplace book. The neighbors started to play some loud music outside, so I closed the windows and completely locked myself in the room. I was focused. Work Duration: 53 minutes
• 10:35 AM - 11:48 AM: I did some paperwork. Work Duration: 1 hour 13 minutes

Deep Work Sessions:

• 12:19 AM - 01:14 PM: I did some research on an algorithm implementation. I think I found a solution. Deep Work Duration: 55 minutes
• 05:10 PM - 06:00 PM: I did some coding and realized that the research that I did previously was unnecessary. I had some trouble with the new OS and was not highly focused. Deep Work Duration: 50 minutes

I wasn't highly productive today. Some past traumas came back to my mind and I was a little depressed because of this. I also had performance issues with my new operating system that frustrated me a lot, I will have to change again.

• Total Work Duration: 3 hours 51 minutes, including 1 hour 45 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 30 minutes (objective 30 minutes - 1 hour)

[Raphael]

15 April 2020

• Wake Up Time: 05:38 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 10:25 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• No Work For Today

 

• Total Work Hours: 0 hours (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 30 minutes - 1 hour)

[Raphael]

16 April 2020

• Wake Up Time: 06:30 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 09:36 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• 09:03 AM - 10:33 AM: I worked on my system configuration. Work Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes
• 10:51 AM - 12:19 AM: I configured some emails and my development environment. Work Duration: 1 hour 28 minutes.
• 01:23 PM - 02: 42 PM: I started to set up the CouchDB database, but got a lot of dependencies error. Work Duration: 1 hour 19 minutes.
• 03:15 PM - 4:25 PM: I finished the database and client project setup, I'm finally able to work without having a system that slows down (at least for the moment). Work Duration: 1 hour 10 minutes.

Deep Work Sessions:

• 05:08 PM - 06:13 PM:  I worked on an HTML dropdown menu. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 5 minutes.
• 7:45 PM - 20:26 PM: I finished up with some Typescript programming. Deep Work Duration: 41 minutes

 

• Total Work Duration: 7 hours 13 minutes, including 1 hour 46 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 30 minutes - 1 hour)

[Raphael]

17 April 2020

• Wake Up Time: 05:40 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 09:24 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Deep Work Sessions:

• 09:22 AM - 10:05 AM: I did some HTML & CSS fixes, but got distracted by some thoughts and also searched for a plugin in the middle of the session. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 17 minutes.
• 10: 23 AM - 12:35 AM: I worked on an HTML & CSS dropdown menu, but I realized at the end that I did it the wrong way. I now need to start over. I a lot of parasite negative thoughts and got interrupted at a moment. I lacked focus. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 12 minutes.
• 02:10 PM - 03:45 PM: I completed the dropdown menu, but still got distracted by negative thoughts. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 35 minutes.
• 04:50 PM - 06:08 PM: I started to learn about SEO so I read some articles about focus keywords. Deep Word Duration: 1 hour 18 minutes.

Today's was a little difficult day. I spend too much time being distracted between work sessions. I watched porn and masturbated at a moment between two sessions. I also had a lot of negative thoughts, I'm not sure why but I have been getting a lot more of these since the last 1-2 weeks. It caused me difficulties to be focused.

• Total Work Duration: 5 hours 22 minutes, including 5 hours 22 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 35 minutes (objective 30 minutes - 1 hour)

[Raphael]

18 April 2020

• Wake Up Time: 05:50 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 09:10 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• 04:30 PM - 05:13 PM: I searched for clients online and send a few proposals. There's much less projects available than before, probably because of the pandemic . Work Duration: 43 minutes.

Deep Work Sessions:

• 08:19 AM - 09:51 AM: I did some SEO training, but I not sure if I did it right. I was focused. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 32 minutes.
• 10:12 AM - 11:54 AM: I continued the SEO training, I was a little confused. I got distracted by some negative thoughts and look at actualized.org forum at a moment. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 42 minutes.
• 01:11 PM - 02:36 PM: I searched for a pretty sans-serif font and worked on an HTML/CSS form validation. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 15 minutes.
• 02:46 PM - 04:04 PM: I worked on some data structure in order to flexibly create forms. I got some negative thoughts. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 18 minutes.

 

• Total Work Duration: 6 hours 30 minutes, including 5 hours 47 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 30 minutes (objective 30 minutes - 1 hour)

[Raphael]

19 April 2020

• Wake Up Time: 05:40 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 10:00 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• No Work For Today

 

• Total Work Hours: 0 hours (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 30 minutes - 1 hour)

[Raphael]

20 April 2020

• Wake Up Time: 06:20 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 09:30 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Deep Work Sessions:

• 12:30 AM - 01:24 PM: I worked on a web component: Deep Work Duration: 0 hours 54 minutes.

• 02:20 PM - 04:42 PM: I continued the work on the web component and I also had some issues with content translation. Deep Work Duration: 2 hours 22 minutes.

• 05:02 PM - 06:15 PM: I did a lot of good progress, the component is almost finished. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 13 minutes.

Today's day's beginning has been pretty sloppy. I woke up late because I went to bed late yesterday and didn't sleep well, I also procrastinated in the morning by spending time on the internet. I found it difficult to get started, but I finally began to work. Fortunately, the work went smoothly today even if I didn't work a lot.

• Total Work Duration: 4 hours 29 minutes, including 4 hours 29 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 33 minutes (objective 30 minutes - 1 hour)

Edited April 21, 2020 by Raphael

[Raphael]

21 April 2020

• Wake Up Time: 05:58 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM)
• In Bed Time: 09:10 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM)

Work Sessions:

• 08:51 AM - 09:50 PM: I had a communication with a client and analyzed some issues on a website. I distracted myself on actualized.org/forum and youtube.com. This was a very shallow session. Work Duration: 43 minutes.
• 10:28 AM - 12:50 PM: I trained myself on SEO, I read an article and added meta titles and meta description to webpages. It wasn't really deep work as I was not dealing with a complex issue. Work Duration: 1 hour 22 minutes.
• 05:35 AM - 06:17 PM: I searched for clients and send two new proposals. Work Duration: 52 minutes.

Deep Work Sessions:

• 02:20 PM - 04:02 PM: I worked on a validation function, but got some issues that I still didn't fixed. Deep Work Duration: 2 hours 22 minutes.
• 04:28 PM - 05:31 PM: I made the validation function work and created a commit. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 3 minutes.

I thought I would end up my day early (around 4 PM - 5 PM), but it didn't happened because I got troubles getting started in the morning. I distracted myself a little too much between work sessions.

• Total Work Duration: 6 hours 22 minutes, including 3 hours 25 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours)
• Total Reading Time: 37 minutes (objective 30 minutes - 1 hour)

Edited April 21, 2020 by Raphael