Avoiding Deep Work Is Costing You Big

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Deep work, not busyness, is essential for effectively moving the needle forward on anything hard in your life—winning a transformation deal, writing a book, scaling your side business. Today’s edition unpacks exactly what deep work is, why it’s so valuable, and four specific ways to incorporate deep work into your days.

Let’s go!

‍Read time: <5 minutes

What exactly is deep work?

Cal Newport, the author of Deep Work, describes deep work and shallow work like this:‍

Deep work: Performing complex tasks in a state of distraction-free concentration.

Shallow work: Work done in small pieces and doesn't require your full attention (stuff you could do hungover).

Today, deep work is harder to do than ever because of the constant bombardment of notifications, our addictive devices, the incessant need for a dopamine fix from our social media feeds, games, shopping, and the news about anything all at out fingertips.

Research from Newport showed that the average knowledge worker (like those in tech sales), spends 30% of their time on email and another 30% on team communication and internet activities.

That leaves just 40% of work time to get real work done. That’s simply not enough time for the standards necessary for closing transformation deals with large organizations.

This is not a new problem, but sadly, I see sellers moving in the wrong direction - more time is going to shallow work and not towards the meaningful deep work that is both highly valuable and extremely fulfilling (hello flow state!).

Why is deep work so important?

Our economy is more demanding and competitive than ever.

So far this year, 158,535 tech workers have been laid off according to Crunchbase.

But for the select few with exceptional ability or in-demand skills, there's increasing opportunity. Especially now that companies can hire anyone, anywhere in the world, the best in every field are in increasing demand, and can capture exponentially more of the reward.

This is especially true for sales (where I worked 100% remotely for over 7 years - one based in San Francisco, and another based in New York).

So how can you, as a revenue generator, climb to the top of your field?

Newport says this requires 2 key skills:

‍1. The ability to quickly master hard things
2. The ability to produce at an elite level

‍Both of these skills are difficult to cultivate. They require you to practice deep work. But the payoff is immense.

I’ve shared this calculation in previous editions, but it’s worth repeating. Imagine if you are a seller who earned $250K last year. The ability to claw back distractions alone could add an additional $113,636 in commissions with just 2.5 hours shifted from shallow work to deep work.

Then, you combine that with acquiring quality strategic selling skills and it’s not hard to imagine 7.5xing your income in a single year, like I was able to do after I put in the work to build my reputation and skill stack.

Four ways to practice deep work

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