Unfortunately, with a 9-month old roaming the apartment, I haven't been able to enter a 'Deep Work' state in months.
Child-care isn't an option due to COVID, and since I work freelance while my wife has a full-time job, I've been the de facto Mr. Mom, squeezing in work whenever I have a free 10-30-minute block—which isn't often.
By the time he goes to bed, I'm fried from taking care of him all day, and entering into a productive 'deep work'-state is nigh impossible.
Advice to anyone considering having kids: try to live near a parent, and/or plan for childcare if you wish to get 'deep work' done. For caring for a child is, itself, 'deep work'.
The only way I could get anything like deep work (and it was a much shallower version still) was to get up before the kids.
I used to be a big time night owl, with hours of productive coding possible after 11PM. After kids, that was impossible as you described. Now, I get up at 5:30-6:00 without an alarm after many years of dragging myself through the day after setting an alarm.
I found it much easier to drag myself through dinner, bath, and bedtime reading and then go to bed myself than to do all that and then try to do my computer work.
Cal Newport thanks about this situation in his podcast. The short version is: when you're responsible for taking care of a child, that is your main work.
In most scenarios I've heard on his podcast, there's some scheduling between the parents around who's working and who's taking care of the child when. If you're full-time on kid duty, you don't do deep work.
Yep. I'm resigned to this fate for now, and apart from the occasional ventings about the day-to-day stressors (such as this very post ;), can't really complain.
WARN: You'll teach your kid by example. If you are stressed and unhappy because of those unsatisfactory squeezed 30 minutes they will notice. And you'll realize a year later that they were noticing.
I didn't understand what a kid was until she (4yo) corrected the flawed logic of something I just said. Then I realized that all those sacrifices (career included) were worth it.
It gets better once you can use kindergartens... BTW, old parents are not an easy solution in covid times. They are population at risk.
I hope some of this is useful to you. Now I have to prepare some milk to the kid that is dancing around my desk.
I did contract work for Rise Science several years ago, and they never paid me for my work. Hopefully, they've managed to iron out all the issues they were having with Celery in the intervening years.
I found this but didn't really associate it with my sleep patterns. I found it was the general routine which affected my energy levels. I used to time little 20 minute coffee breaks / walks to coincide with the lows and allow me to reinvigorate with new surroundings and sometimes you run into people you know.
If I missed my walks I was always scattered and it didn't matter if I tried to go again later because everything was out of rhythm because I didn't get the new boost at the right time. I think that lunch time is most people's separator (hell the article says afternoon peak and morning peak suggesting they cradle the noon) but they take it for granted because they try to slave to the clock. rather than slaving to the clock they should strive to be most productive and useful which includes their mental state as well
I don't understand how you can say this. Is it not your experience that in almost any work context there will be a few individuals who will produce far more valuable work in far less time than others? It certainly is mine.
I am trying to see your point, though obviously I failed, and to be honest, I still do not fully understand where you are coming from. I do not see a problem with inequality. Its unavoidable. In fact, I am very happy that there are people out there more productive than me in some field, perhaps I will have something to offer to them by being more productive than them in some other field, and we can trade for mutual benefit.
The title of this is a pun, and so winds up not being a great title. But the phenomenon described is definitely real. This is expected practise in fields like music. Every serious musician has figured out the right daily rhythms for their practise to be most effective, and has the times of day at which they do technique, repertoire, improvisation, etc. It really does make a difference.
On a slightly unrelated note: does anyone have experience with Readng itself? It seems to position itself as an alternative to Goodreads, but I'm curious as to what the major selling point is, so to speak, besides owning your data, and what other benefits it may have?
The only way I can focus is eliminating as many ,,shallow’’ tasks as possible (but still do the important ones). One of them would be setting up time trackers and reading self-help books.
If I would be forced to do lots of unimportant things, I’d rather changed job.
Child-care isn't an option due to COVID, and since I work freelance while my wife has a full-time job, I've been the de facto Mr. Mom, squeezing in work whenever I have a free 10-30-minute block—which isn't often.
By the time he goes to bed, I'm fried from taking care of him all day, and entering into a productive 'deep work'-state is nigh impossible.
Advice to anyone considering having kids: try to live near a parent, and/or plan for childcare if you wish to get 'deep work' done. For caring for a child is, itself, 'deep work'.