When you block off time in your calendar to focus on proactive, deep thinking work, do you find it hard to concentrate because a little part of you wonders if you will be seen as irresponsible when you don’t immediately respond to Slack or email? You end up making little progress on your project, because everyone is used to hearing back from you within minutes.
The culture and habit of instant response causes us to be anxious about being “off-line”, even for just a couple of hours. It’s common to think that deep work is “your” work, while meetings and email requests are “other” people’s work. But the truth is the focused work you are doing is really the team’s and company's work. It’s also where you make your unique contribution, so there is no better time to do deep, focused work than during your prime working hours.
So how do you break the instant response impulse and do your quiet, focused work guilt free? Here are three practical strategies:
Do a Reality Check
A client of mine whom I consider a true Time Leader coaches her team to do a reality check on what she calls….S.I.P. (Self Imposed Pressure). Many high achieving professionals have an internal drive to exceed expectations, and pride themselves on always being available and responsive. Search your soul to determine how much of the expectation for instant response is self-imposed pressure, and whether it’s true that others expect, or need, a response instantly. For the most part, people understand if you don't respond in 10 minutes, or even 2 hours, knowing you may be in a meeting, or doing work. Consider what percentage of the anxiety to always be available is self-imposed pressure vs real external needs.
Align with Your Inner Circle
Communicate with the small circle of people who you work with closely. Identify your team and colleagues that are most used to an instant response, or are reliant on your feedback. Say to them, "I'm trying to get deep work done and a big project finished. I won’t be on Slack or email for an hour or two at a time. If you have anything urgent that can’t wait, please call me." This way you remain accessible and reliable to the people who most depend on you, while also being responsible and able to get the deep work done.
Make the Deep Work Visible
Don't hide what you are doing, make it transparent. Make the deep work visible by blocking the time in your calendar. You can call it “Project Work” “Focus Time” “Legato Work” or even the name of the project you are working on, e.g. “Strategic Plan”, “Write Newsletter”, “Product Development”. And talk to peers, direct reports and managers about what you are doing in that time. "This week in my deep work time I'm completing the strategic plan.” or, “I'm developing a new product strategy.” or “I'm working on process improvement for that repeated problem that consistently wastes our time.” Communicating what you are doing, and what the results are, will not only quiet your anxiety when you disconnect, it might even inspire others to carve out time for their own deep thinking, legato work.
When you practice these three simple (but not easy) tips you might really change the instant response expectations, both internal and external. You and your team will come to realize that constant accessibility is not where we truly make our impact. It is the balance between responsiveness and deep thinking work where we make our unique and best contributions.