Speaker 1: How much deep work do you get done on the
Speaker 1: average work day, and I mean deep work, completely focused,
Speaker 1: distraction free work an hour maybe two. Well. New York
Speaker 1: Times best selling author Eric Barker does five, yep five
Speaker 1: hours of deep work every single day. So how does
Speaker 1: Eric achieve this great feat without wasting his day and
Speaker 1: his hours away with emails, social media and other distractions.
Speaker 1: My name is doctor amanthe Immer. I'm an organizational psychologist
Speaker 1: and the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, And this
Speaker 1: is how I work a show about how to help
Speaker 1: you do your best work. On today's My Favorite Tip episode,
Speaker 1: we go back to an interview from the past and
Speaker 1: I pick out my favorite tip from the interview. In
Speaker 1: today's show, I speak with Eric Bucker about his five
Speaker 1: hour countdown timer.
Speaker 2: Every day, I wake up and I have a countdown
Speaker 2: timer on my iPad and it's set for five hours.
Speaker 2: And when I start working, I hit the start button
Speaker 2: and starts counting down from five hours. And if I
Speaker 2: get up to pee, I hit the pause button, and
Speaker 2: if I check email, I hit the pause button. I
Speaker 2: have to take a phone call, I hit the pose button,
Speaker 2: and by the end of the day that needs to
Speaker 2: get to zero, and if it doesn't get to zero,
Speaker 2: then I guess I got more work to do. And
Speaker 2: that way, I know, I've designated this is what's work.
Speaker 2: And if you're doing anything but work doesn't count. And
Speaker 2: because I think it's so easy to rationalize, it's so
Speaker 2: easy to rationalize and trick yourself. Or you accomplish something
Speaker 2: and you feel good and then it's, oh, yeah, let's
Speaker 2: I did six good minutes of work. I deserve three
Speaker 2: days off, and like it's all too easy to do that,
Speaker 2: and this keeps me accountable, and it's ruthless. It's ruthless,
Speaker 2: but it works.
Speaker 1: Five hours. I'm freaking out about that. So I do
Speaker 1: deep work sprints almost every day of one to two
Speaker 1: hours in length, typically closer to sixty to ninety minutes
Speaker 1: in length, and maybe two or three of those, and
Speaker 1: then sort of the day will progress into more shallow work.
Speaker 1: So why five hours? That seems like a lot in
Speaker 1: a way.
Speaker 2: Well, like I said, it's not one continuous stretch. I
Speaker 2: can take a break whenever I want, but you know,
Speaker 2: and I could take a break. I do whatever I
Speaker 2: have to. So five hours of solid work usually takes
Speaker 2: more like eight to ten hours if I'm really kicking,
Speaker 2: if I'm really kicking ass, it's like I could do
Speaker 2: it in seven. But no, it's like, I mean, part
Speaker 2: of that is a cumult like is built up stamina
Speaker 2: over time where you know once you can do it.
Speaker 2: And part of that is like definitely the you know,
Speaker 2: I always prioritize what I use the technical term of
Speaker 2: thinky work, uh, thinky work that I have to use
Speaker 2: a lot of cognitive forest power for that always comes first,
Speaker 2: you know, and by the end of the five hours,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe it is you know, looking at research
Speaker 2: or something. It's not busy work. It still has to
Speaker 2: be something like constructive, you know, but it definitely tones
Speaker 2: down from like really active. I can probably only like
Speaker 2: really focus on like solid writing probably for three to
Speaker 2: four you know, but it needs to be contributing to
Speaker 2: the to the bottom line and in that sense. And
Speaker 2: the other good thing about it is if you are
Speaker 2: the super productive, uh somewhat anxious type, then you know
Speaker 2: you can you can do a lot of stuff, but
Speaker 2: you can get to that place at the end of
Speaker 2: the day where you're like, like did I really get
Speaker 2: stuff done? Did I really move the needle? Did I
Speaker 2: And that five hours and that prioritization well like when
Speaker 2: that buzzer goes off and that bell rings, like, there's
Speaker 2: no guilt. I did fine. I know I did five hours,
Speaker 2: you know, pausing for anything that was nowhere, and I'm done.
Speaker 2: I am done, and I can relax, because otherwise I
Speaker 2: would drive myself crazy.
Speaker 1: When I first heard this tip, I thought that I
Speaker 1: have to try it. I must say I wasn't as
Speaker 1: ambitious as setting it for five hours straight away, but
Speaker 1: even setting it for one or two hours, if that's
Speaker 1: what I reasonably thought I could fit into my day
Speaker 1: in terms of deep focused work, was hugely motivating and
Speaker 1: staying on task, but even more motivating when I could
Speaker 1: get to the end of the day and know that
Speaker 1: without any doubts, I had done several quality hours of
Speaker 1: deep work. If you're looking for more tips to improve
Speaker 1: the way that you work, I write a short fortnightly
Speaker 1: newsletter that contains three cool things that I've discovered that
Speaker 1: helped me work better, ranging from software and gadgets that
Speaker 1: I'm loving through to interesting research findings. You can sign
Speaker 1: up for that at Howiwork dot code That's how I
Speaker 1: Work dot coo. How I Work is produced by Inventium
Speaker 1: with production support from Dead Set Studios. And thank you
Speaker 1: to Matt Nimba who does the audio mix for every
Speaker 1: episode and makes everything sound so much better than it
Speaker 1: would have otherwise. See you next time.