Working next to the gangway

When I was the Managing Director of the m/v Africa Mercy, a Mercy Ships hospital ship, my office was the closest to the gangway. This meant that hundreds of people passed by my office door every day, which was less than three meters away. The gangway and reception area was the heart of the ship, so it was easy to keep in touch with how things were going. It was where the ‘action’ was at.

As good as this was for keeping my finger on the pulse of our port visit, working so close to all this activity made for a high level of mental load and distraction. Sometimes when I was working to write an email, I would be stopped multiple times before it was complete. A simple message could take me over an hour to write. By the end of the day, I would go back to my cabin with my brain feeling like mush because of the cognitive load I carried from trying to concentrate. Some of my emails were also not very well written either!

Creating space for deep work

Cal Newport has written a book called ‘Deep Work’. I highly recommend it or googling for alternatives. He makes the case that we do our best work and create the best value when we are able to concentrate. We must be very intentional about the space for concentration and protect it. I won’t do a complete book review here, but rather focus on one solution.

Among some productivity enthusiasts is a technique called Pomodoro. Pomodoro is the Italian word for tomato and was developed by Francesco Cirillo, who used a kitchen timer in the shape of a tomato to have focused 25 minute sessions of concentration on a batch of tasks. From this technique, I learned that if I could switch off all my alerts, close my door and avert all distractions for 25 minutes, I could get an amazing amount of quality work done.

At the end of my sprint, I could then take a five to ten minute break to deal with any urgent issues, then pick up another 25 minutes to give my tasks another push. Obviously, the more sessions I could manage in a day, the better my productivity was, even with interruptions.

Breaking up with the mental gangway in our lives

With our digital devices we can create some of the same stimuli even from working at home. Starting with the first moments we are awake, to the final moments before we sleep, notices flash up of a newly arrived email, computer sounds signal another update and multiple windows split our attention as juggle tasks, never really going deep. It is like bringing the gangway of the Africa Mercy into your brain.

Many I have spoken to will readily agree that this makes sense, but confess that it can be hard to implement. Why is it hard to break away from this mental gangway? I’ll propose two reasons:

First, many believe they can multitask and do quality work at the same time. There are a number of studies online which seek to dispel this. You can decide if you agree or not.

Second, neuroscience has taught us that there is an addictive element to this, particularly in social networking. Some have suggested we get a shot of dopamine, a chemical which we feel pleasure from, when we get a ‘like’ or an alert of an incoming message.

But don’t take my word for it. Set a timer, though it does not need to be tomato shaped, and see if you are able to get a better result in your work. Also, don’t forget the humble notebook. Sometimes it is good to just sit somewhere off the grid with a nice hot drink to think, reflect and write, even for just 25 minutes!

Yes, breaking up can be hard, but I have found it is so worth it!