In his latest book, author Cal Newport describes the concept of Deep Work as "the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task... a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time."
In my humble opinion, improved levels focus and concentration can be gradually achieved with regular meditation. After all, meditation is a scientifically proven mental exercise known to benefit mental and physical health and wellbeing, not to mention, the benefits extend far and wide providing improvements almost everywhere else in an individual's lifestyle, career, and overall outlook on life.
However, regardless of whether you define yourself as spiritual or not, meditation is not what this post is about; I want to talk about sifting through, putting together, and giving definition to all the information entering your head.
Our present times are defined by the amount of information that encircles the globe millions of times per minutes. We're often barraged with advertisement, media, and technological proliferation; billions of bits of text, images, and sounds entering our brains every day. There are no shortages of experts writing volumes of literature dedicated to the subject - the giant problem of being too distracted, unable to hone our attention on what is truly important.
The following is just one simple attempt at a finding a solution to organizing our mental clutter. It is a simple tool I've been using for the past few months designed to take up no more than 15 minutes of your time. The goal is to give coherence to clutter and tie together loose strings of information accumulated of a daily basis.
It is also highly flexible may be used to satisfy a variety of purposes. I use it primarily as a study tool and as a way to improve the efficiency of picking up a new skill.
I hope it helps you as much as it has helped me.
I start out with an Excel sheet with vertical columns that each map an activity, and horizontal rows that signify time, but it is just an example. You can design your own workbook according to your needs. As for how to go about filling in the details, I will describe my own method.
Any new activity that I decide to get started on, is divided into four parts, namely the:
➤ Outline
➤ Execution
➤ Revision
➤ Profit
Note that only the execution phase is logged (outline is optional. I've noticed these goals often change so I've never felt the need to make the outline into something concrete). The rest is just mere observation.
The colours indicate whether an activity has been completed as per its alloted time. Green = complete. Red = incomplete. Blue just means that day was a break.
This was just an example. The sheet I use in real life has a lot more data. If you can quantify it, you can use it as data. I even enter in the quality of my day, number of meals I ate, whether I've been fasting, smoking, hours I managed to focus, and so on and so forth. You can make fun charts and graphs once you have a lot of data and have a blast correlating and studying the processes that make you tick.
Why is this an important tool?
➤ Over time, gaps in your practice will be easier to spot. If you are like me, that feeling of guilt should work its magic and set you back on track.
➤ If you feed a lot of daily data into your excel sheet, you can use it as an easy way to find information you are looking for. For example, I often take notes for things directly into my excel sheet so I have one central place to find them.
➤ Getting the ball rolling is often the hardest part and requires the most effort, but over time it becomes easier. Looking at your logs will grant you the additional motivation you need to push yourself further and squeeze out more time and effort into fulfilling the activity.
➤ It's just a great way to record your life and daily habits.
Good luck! Thanks for reading.
