Is The Internet Affecting Our Ability To Be More Productive?
We are living in an information age where communication happens on an unprecedented level at the speed of light.
With the advancement in technology, the internet has become the chief source of that communication and transmission of information.
The life of the average person is so intertwined with the internet that one sometimes wonders how we ever managed without it. My children have often asked me what we did in the “olden days” when there was no internet, and my answer has always been that we managed just fine. We couldn’t miss what we did not even know about.
A 2012 McKinsey study found that the average knowledge worker now spends more than 60 percent of the workweek (28 hours each week) engaged in electronic communication and Internet searching, with close to 30 percent of a worker’s time dedicated to reading and answering e-mail alone.
With this amount of time spent on the internet, one should hope that the quality and quantity of work produced would be commensurate with the time investment. Sadly, this is not often the case.
Recently, in my own life, I have found myself concerned by the amount of time I spend on the internet. Granted that about half of my work requires internet use but then other things attract my attention and I end up wasting quite a valuable amount of time doing things I won’t consider as work.
There is a high tendency for the internet to become a great source of distraction if not properly managed. So therein lies the dilemma — an information age that is heavily reliant on the internet and an economy that demands that people continuously produce high quality work that usually happens in an environment free of distraction. The solution is to find a balance: to continue producing at such high standards while minimizing the distraction that could arise in this heavily interconnected culture.
In his book, Deep Work, Cal Newport amongst other strategies, provides some answers for becoming more productive through doing what he calls deep work. He shares four rules for dealing with the distractions that are inherently pervasive in our present culture so that we can still meet the demands required for staying competitive and thriving in this information age. Below are some lessons from the book that will help in addressing the issue of staying productive in an increasingly distracted world.
To remain relevant and successful in this technology-driven world, two key abilities are needed. First is the ability to master hard things quickly, and to do so again, and again. This is crucial because of the rapid level of change that occurs with technology; there’s constant and continuous change to the way things are done so the need to keep evolving and adapting. The second is the ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and skill. This calls for mastery but mastery is not enough. It must also translate to producing valuable results. The only way to achieve these results is by doing deep work thereby improving the chances of getting rewarded for the effort put in.
These two abilities depend on the capacity to perform deep work.
Deep work helps you to quickly learn new things.
So, what is deep work? Deep work is defined as “professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.
Deep work requires intense concentration which is equivalent to deliberate practice.
Deliberate practice cannot exist alongside distraction, it instead requires uninterrupted concentration.
This form of concentrated work requires working for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction. In other words, the type of work that optimizes your performance is deep work. If you’re not comfortable going deep for extended periods of time, it’ll be difficult to get your performance to the peak levels of quality and quantity increasingly necessary to thrive professionally in the current information economy.
Deep work is necessary for growing skills then applying those skills to producing at an elite level.
The law of productivity states that:
High Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)
This therefore means that to be more productive, deep and concentrated focus with a good amount of time investment is required.
In the book, Cal Newport presents four rules which he believes are key to dealing with the many distractions that often hamper the ability to focus deeply and produce high quality work.
Rule 1 — Work Deeply
The first rule is to Work Deeply. One might be tempted to assume that this is easy enough to do but it is not. There are several reasons for this. The mind always tends to prefer dwelling on things that are superficial. Unfortunately, people underestimate the pull this has on the human willpower. We are regularly bombarded with desires that want urgent fulfilment and it is usually easier to give in to these than deny ourselves. The willpower is not strong enough to resist these desires clamouring for fulfilment. More effort is needed to combat this craving to satisfy these incessant demands on our attention and emotions. This is where introduction of routines and rituals into our daily schedules become important. This could be in the form of creating special times and place for conducting the work considered as deep work for attaining high results.
A lot of discipline is needed to achieve the desired result while also at the same time adopting a practical approach based on each person’s peculiar situation and current circumstances.
Rule 2 — Embrace Boredom
Give yourself permission to be bored.
Efforts to strenghten this ability for deep work will not be successful if we do not learn how to prevent our minds from too much dependence on distractions and avoiding the slightest hint of boredom. This can be achieved by not always seeking ways to relieve boredom with distracting activities.
Rather than taking breaks from distraction, we should learn to take breaks from focus. Of course, this makes sense as your main effort is towards work rather than to get distracted. You take a break from what is your main activity and not the other way around. The example of distraction discussed here is the use of the internet but it should be noted that myriads of other forms of distractions exist. So, back to our example. One of the strategies that people have suggested for reducing time spent on the internet is what is called the Internet Sabbath where one abstains from the use of the internet for a given period of time. This strategy has been found not to be very effective. A more effective strategy proposed here is the scheduling of internet use — assigning specific time periods for using the internet and refraining from its use outside of those times. This applies even if one’s job requires spending long periods of time on the internet. Another effective way is what is called, meditating productively. This means making use of any time not spent physically doing deep work to think deeply and planning the next activities and tasks to be done. There is a caution here to watch out for distractions and looping in the mind while thinking — not allowing the mind to wander off.
Rule 3 — Quit Social Media
This is not saying to arbitrarily stop using all social media. The use of any particular service or social media platform should be based on its perceived value and alignment with your work and personal goals. The following questions should be asked; how valuable is this service to the achievement of my goals? How much will its use contribute to the success I’m striving for?
Based on an experiment conducted by Ryan Nicodemus who was trying to get rid of his personal stuff, it asks each person to make an informed decision by evaluating how critical a particular network tool is to their work and personal life and based on the results of such evaluation making a final decision on what tools to continue using and which to quit. The experiment requires that people quit the use of all social media for a 30 days period and then at the end ask yourself some questions for each of the services used to help make the decision on the continued use of that tool or not. The two questions: (1) would the last 30 days have been better if I had used this service? (2) did people care that I wasn’t using this service?
If the answer to the two questions is yes, then by all means continue using that service. If the answer is no, then quit immediately and if the answer was not a clear yes or no, then it’s up to the person whether to continue using the service or not.
Another useful strategy to help in increasing productivity is the recommendation to put more thought into the use of leisure time. The internet should not be used for entertaining yourself during your down time. Be deliberate and plan ahead how to use any available free time rather than allow any random distraction to take up that time.
Rule 4 — Drain the Shallows
The typical workday is eight hours which is filled with different activities and tasks from sending and receiving emails, meetings, working on and reviewing reports, following up and supervision duties amongst so many others. Some of these activities constitute to deep work while others are shallow work. Shallow work is something that cannot be avoided in a typical day at work. The caution here is not to allow it take up time meant for doing other more impactful work.
In an experiment conducted by a company, Basecamp, in 2007, it was found that when the usual 5-day workweek was reduced to four days, employees seemed to accomplish the same amount of work with one less day as it did when it was five days. This led the company to making the change permanent. The conclusion from this finding was that a reduction meant more work got done as less days to work helped to “squeeze the fat out of the typical workweek”. It helped people focus more on doing the most important things and eliminating other non-essential and shallow work to the barest minimum. In a manner of speaking, it helped cut out the fluff from the day’s activity.
Some of the strategies proposed for accomplishing the above include:
· Scheduling every minute of everyday
This strategy proposes that you think about every single activity you will be doing each day and assign a time for them. These will certainly include both deep work and shallow work activities. The reason this is important is that most times we let our days run on autopilot without any strict plans. We do whatever comes up. This shouldn’t be so. Time slots should be allocated for each of those activities. But no matter how carefully we plan this action there will likely be interruptions or spill overs in the schedule. This should not be a problem as this should have been anticipated and the necessary adjustments made to accommodate the changes. Be ready to continue making revisions to the first schedule as the day progresses. This practice should become easier with time as it is diligently done every day.
· Quantifying the depth of every activity
A key benefit of scheduling daily activities is that it provides a clear picture of the amount of non-deep work that one engages in in a day. This is what is called shallow work.
Shallow work is defined as, “Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend not to create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.”
An understanding of what constitutes shallow work is important as it helps in deciding where more or less effort and focus should go in the scheduling of daily activities.
With the above definition, certain activities and task easily come to mind. But there are other activities that are not so easy to classify and fall somewhere between deep and shallow work. The deciding factor in this instance should be how much expertise is required to perform the said task. More time should be dedicated to the activities that are considered deep work which require more expertise. These types of tasks also have the dual advantage of providing more value as well as leading to improvement in skills.
Conclusion
So much has been said on the subject of how the internet affects and continues to impact on the way we live and work. Many have argued that as much good as it has done, that the internet has also impacted our lives negatively. Overdependence on online solutions to practically every problem often leads to low incentives for intellectual effort as almost everything can be obtained at the click of a button.
There is no denying that the internet has contributed immensely to improving our lives in many ways. The benefits are many and wide ranging — from fast communication systems to online banking, ecommerce, and so much more.
In his book, Deep Work, Cal Newport while acknowledging the immense benefits of the internet in this highly interconnected world, also admits that too much use of the technology has contributed largely to a disruption where even though the current economy calls for high productivity, there is less of it due to distractions that prevent people from engaging in deep work. He however proposes some strategies and rules to help in cultivating the ability to be highly focused and productive despite the distractions. This includes developing good work habits like daily scheduling of activities, identifying and eliminating non-essential network tools, deliberately planning use of leisure time amongst other practices.
When applied, these lessons have the ability to help in addressing these disruptions in people’s lives and work while adopting the strategies and rules outlined will aid in optimizing the use of the internet leading to more productivity despite its inherent capacity for distraction when not correctly managed.
