I want to move things forward faster. Mo, what would you recommend?
I got this question last week during a GrowBIG Training.
The answer?
Deep Work.
And man, I'm a fan!
Cal Newport has popularized the concept: long blocks of time to move one thing forward. No interruptions. LOTS of meaningful momentum.
The opposite of Deep Work?
Confetti Time.
I'm not sure where I heard that term, but it sure resonated.
Confetti Time is where you have entire days of on/off time blocks. You never have more than 20 or 30 minutes to yourself.
Zoom meetings. Travel. Constant interruptions. Slack messages, texts, and random emails.
It never seems like things move forward.
It's frustrating.
The opposite?
Meaningful Momentum.
The method?
Deep Work.
There's a big need for Deep Work in business development:
Reviewing what's working and what's not
Setting growth strategy through a system like our GrowBIG Leader Training
Writing compelling collateral and copy
Automating processes
Reengineering processes
Refining your market positioning and value story
Figuring out how you can better create curiosity
Perfecting that amazing potential Give To Get you've been thinking about
Creating templates of great questions, objection/resolution matrices, meeting agendas, standard responses
There's so much we can do to improve.
Sometimes we need to slow down to speed up!
I think there are three kinds of work modes:
Normal day to day work
Not working: vacation
Deep Work
Most of us spend a lot of time planning the first two, but rarely the third.
I love being in front of our clients, helping them help their clients succeed.
It's a rush to deliver our GrowBIG Training and other programs.
But I also get a similar rush from working on my own.
Big blocks of time.
Big movements forward.
It's so damn satisfying.
So how do you get more Deep Work time?
Three ways.
- Daily: Build in little blocks of uninterrupted time. This is generally best near the beginning of the day. Start with a small time block and make it bigger over time.
- Quarterly: I try to build in a "just work on the big stuff, whatever it is" for a day or two near the end of each quarter. We have some seasonality in our business where it slows down twice a year, so I build in a little more time then. You can leverage your seasonality for Deep Work too
- Episodically: When I see a big project coming up, I try to block off a few days for it, sometimes longer. I have to schedule these sessions a couple of months in advance because my schedule books up to 6 months out. I have to look ahead on these, which isn't my natural tendency. When I have the foresight to plan this out, it works great.
You can set these time blocks in your calendar right now. Pick your desired cadences with time blocks and schedule recurring meetings forever.
A few seconds now will get you started.
Here's Pro-tip.
You have to block off the time.
Deep Work will never happen naturally.
Plan it. Block it. Hold it.
Deep Work only works if the time is uninterrupted.
Scheduling is pretty easy. Holding the time is hard.
It's really hard.
But do it.
Your future self's success is depending on it.
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