Weekly Experiment Club #016: Become the most productive and efficient you in 2023
How to use deep work sessions to be maximally efficient and productive.
👋 Hi there!
This is the 16th edition of the ‘Weekly Experiment Club’. If you participated in last weeks experiment, take a moment to reflect. Did daily exercise improve your mood and lessen stress and anxiety for you?
What is the ‘Weekly Experiment Club’?
Each week we challenge you with one actionable experiment that we take from the best self-improvement books out there. The goal is to build better habits to improve your mindset, health, productivity or gain new perspectives.
Why? Because reading another book or consuming more content doesn’t get you anywhere. The only way you can improve is by taking actions and measuring how those actions impact your life. That is why we give you an experiment. Don’t overthink it, just do one experiment with us a week and stick to the things that work for you.
Okay, let’s get to it! 🚀
👉 Today’s topic: Deep work sessions
Some months ago, I read the book Deep Work by Cal Newport. I immensely enjoyed the book and immediately started using so-called deep work sessions to become much more productive in creative work and work that requires deep thinking.
Due to circumstances, I lately stopped using deep work sessions, and my productivity decreased markedly. So did my efficiency: without deep work sessions, the same work took me much more time to complete.
Therefore I decided to pick up deep work sessions again, and I’d like to take you along!
But, you ask, deep work? What the heck are you talking about? Let’s ask Cal Newport himself:
’Deep work’ is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. […] The goal is to create a setting where you can get into a state of deep human flourishing - creating work that’s at the absolute extent of your personal ability.
🧪 This weeks experiment
Our hypothesis for this week is:
Using deep work sessions will increase your productivity and efficiency. You will achieve more in less time.
🤌🏻 But, but, how do I best do it?
The most commonly used strategy for implementing deep work sessions is to block a couple of hours every working day for this. Say, every working day between 09.00 and 12.00. Adapt this to your personal schedule, but make sure to block at least two hours per session.
Make sure that nothing can distract you during your deep work sessions. Switch off your phone, block your email or disconnect from the internet, whatever is necessary to ensure those hours are for deep work and deep work only.
Specify the where, what, and how of your deep work sessions in advance. For instance,
“During this deep work session I will work in my study room. I will solve problem x / do tough analysis y / write the second chapter of my book. I will start my session with a coffee and go for a walk after I finished the session.”
Make sure that you finish whatever you wanted to finish in your deep work sessions. No excuses!
Okay, enough talk.
📖 Further readings
Deep Work by Cal Newport
Get our full course on Newport’s Deep Work via actionablebookclub.com
Let’s be real. Doing experiments like this is a lot easier if you don’t do it together with a friend. So why not forward the newsletter and take on a challenge with a friend? Many of our readers create Whatsapp or Telegram groups and have a daily check-in to make sure they complete the challenge.
Join hundreds of other people that take on the ‘Weekly Experiment Club’ with their friends and decided to grow together.
Happy action taking!