How To Do Remote Collaborative Deep Work
Using Cal Newport’s principle of Deep Work as a Design Studio.
After reading Cal Newport’s “Deep Work — Rules for focused success in a distracted world” I’ve been fascinated by how to do Deep Work. Deep Work is “the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task”. After three years of implementing Deep Work practices, mainly freelancing, I’ve found it be a superpower…
- You get paid for higher value results 💵
- You’re excited by your work 🤩
- You develop new skills and abilities 🏋️♀️
- All whilst having a great work-life balance 🏄🏼♂️
At the end of 2018 I met Andrej. I shared my ability of Deep Work and he shared his ability of GV Design Sprints and Remote Collaboration. Together we started Deep Work Studio. To see how we could go ‘deeper’ (excuse the excessive deep puns) in a remote setting working with clients.
Cal Newport’s book is fantastic for developing Deep Work skills as individuals. Andrej and I have been going a step further, finding a rewarding solution to Deep Work as a team.
How to do Deep Work collaborating with clients or a team
Schedule Deep and Shallow Work
The ability to solve complex problems and work at the top of a skillset, with quality and speed, define the ability to thrive in today’s economy.
Deep Work:
- Distraction free.
- Push your cognitive abilities to their limit.
- Yet you remain capable at the edge of your ability in a state of flow.
- Creates new value, improves skills and hard to replicate.
Shallow Work:
- Often performed whilst distracted
- Non-cognitively demanding
- Logistic-style takes
- Does not create new value for the world and easy to replicate.
Deep Work is becoming increasingly rare in an ever more distracted world. The ability to harness it as a skill makes you exceptionally more valuable.
Cal Newport shows “you have a finite amount of willpower that becomes depleted as you use it.” We’ve found Deep Work similar to working out a muscle. After a certain time, we can no longer lift the same cognitive weight. Pushing through gets diminishing returns. More so, if pushing highly cognitive tasks too much in one day, we burn out. Taking a significant amount of time to recover before we can work ‘deep’ again.
At Deep Work Studio we schedule Deep Work using GV Design Sprints. We’ve adapted the schedule for our clients to do collaborate Deep Work:
We’ve made the Sprint process six days long so we work a maximum of 4 Deep Hours a day:
Jake Knapp’s sprint process was originally five days. Andrej worked at AJ&Smart where they condensed the process to four days for a client setting. Working remotely, we’ve taken the process to six-days. Why?
- Working 8–10 hour days over four days meant we needed at least a four day break after a sprint. Only then could we produce high level cognitive results again. Giving our next client our full attention.
- Client feedback said our collaboration sessions are intense — they are meant to be! But, not to the stage we’re giving us and our clients burnout and they’re not enjoying the process.
- The result: six day projects instead of eight (four sprint+ four day recovery). With higher value results by doing only Deep Work.
Use a structure to commit to high value Deep Work when you collaborate
Sprints force you to focus on the most important questions and problems. We focus our sessions to do only Deep Work. Achieving what’s possible before we’ are mentally tired. Our sessions are delivered as follows:
- Day 1 — Define Goals and Challenges — 4 hours — We’re forced to focus on the most important and cognitively demanding problems.
- Day 2 — Research and Generate Solutions — 3 hours — Clients are challenged to sketch and work creatively, creating new value.
- Day 3 — Merge Solutions into a Storyboard — 3 hours — One of the most demanding tasks. We take a whole day to focus and use our collective deep work brain power to produce the optimal solution.
- Days 4 and 5 — Create a Prototype — 4 hours per day — We used to build the prototype in one day. Doing Deep Work over two days produced significantly better user experiences and visual design in our prototypes.
- Day 6 — User Testing — 4 hours — Focused user testing to make sure we truly understand the feedback before writing a final report for clients.
Scheduling only 3–4 hours of Deep Work a day we focus on delivering higher value results. Our clients get 80% of the value delivered in 20% of the time whilst we don’t burn out working out our cognitive max.
No Context Switching
We only work in pairings with only one client at a time!
“When you switch from some Task A to another Task B, your attention doesn’t immediately follow — a residue of your attention remains stuck thinking about the original task. This residue gets especially thick if your work on Task A was unbounded and of low intensity before you switched, but even if you finish Task A before moving on, your attention remains divided for a while.” — Cal Newport.
Working in agencies and companies, context switching is the biggest waste I’ve ever experienced. Most of the time, clients are paying for teams or freelancers to context switch between tasks — whilst paying a day or hourly rate!
Using Collaboration Tools For Focused Deep Work
Working with clients we do most of our work synchronously on zoom calls. This forces focus and the clients can’t complete after tasks. We know exactly when we’re working together. Meaning we stick to a schedule and produce results in significantly less time. Some of the tools we use:
- Zoom — For video chat meetings
- Miro — For most of the collaborative brainstorming
- Figma — For Design collaboration
Tip: we’ve found music incredible helpful for focused work when you’re not talking. Taking away any awkward silences.
Preparation and Review
Deep Work is deliberate practice. “The core components of deliberate practice are usually identified as follows: (1) your attention is focused tightly on a specific skill you’re trying to improve or an idea you’re trying to master; (2) you receive feedback so you can correct your approach to keep your attention exactly where it’s most productive.” — Cal Newport.
Preparing for tight focus:
Working in deliberate practice in a collaborate session is difficult and requires a certain amount of planning. Before a sprint starts, we spend time on-boarding the client. Making sure they know what to expect, signed up and downloaded the tools they’ll be using and have scheduled their time without distraction. We ask the client to find and help schedule user interviews before the sprint starts, to make sure we’re not distracted by shallow work.
The result, the client starts the Sprint mentally prepared and ready for focused Deep Work.
Feedback and review:
After the Sprint we’re always looking for feedback and ask our clients to fill out a short survey. Internally we run a Sprint review at the end of each week.
- We review all the positives and negatives from the week.
- We vote on the most important aspects to make sure we focused.
- We generate solutions to the negatives and find ways to double down on the positives.
- We vote on the best solutions and decide responsibility for implementing them.
The result is each new client getting a significantly improved process. With each new Sprint finding ways of doing Deep Work and producing higher value results.
How to sell Deep Work to Clients
Our proposals don’t sell time on tools. Focusing on the value we deliver or the problem we solve.
- Focus on the outcome or the value the client wants delivered, not time.
- “The process compresses potentially months of work into a few days.”
- “More value than agencies and freelancers by doing creative and cognitively demanding Deep Work.”
How we communicate the value of the Deep Work Collaborative Process To Clients:
Schedule Deep and Shallow Work
> We focus on the most important problems and questions with results from real users. Not shallow work. We recommend iterating on our results internally or with other freelancers or agencies.
Use a structure to commit to high value Deep Work when you collaborate
> Collaboration means you’re in control bringing your depth of subject and skillsets combined with our product design skills to produce higher value results.
No Context Switching
> You don’t pay for it!
Using Collaboration Tools For Focused Deep Work
> Using the tools we work remotely, meaning no need to travel or pay for us or your team to be in the same place.
Preparation and Review
> You’re paying for our experience, expertise, process and iterations — not just the time with us.
Is Deep Work More Valuable?
Before we had case studies showing the results we can produce in as little as week, clients would compare our prices to other freelancers or agencies. The case studies went a long way to showing what is accomplished in a short space of time doing Deep Work.
I never had a qualitative or quantitative answer to how our rates compare. Therefore, I used the research for this post to focus on the quantitative. Looking at day rates; a six day, two Deep Work Studio team member sprint, costing $24,000, is perceived as $2,000 per day per team member. Way more than most agencies and freelancers.
I calculated the the actual value (abstracted in this un-listed post for those who want to see the workings) as a client paying an actual day rate of ~$348 per team member per day. Way less than other freelancers and agencies with our depth of skill.
Why do collaborate Deep Work…
Deep Work allows us to quickly master complicated information and produce significantly higher value results in less time. All whilst collaborating with clients in an enjoyable and exciting experience.
