How I Get My Focused Work Done

Dia dhaoibh, a dhomhain! (“Hello World!” in Irish)

Century Post Office: Raleigh, NC, September 2024 – Photo by Kevin Goldsmith

Meeting some readers/listeners at the Business of Software conference last month was great. Thanks to those who approached me to say hello. We’re into Q4 now, and exec teams are starting (or in the middle of) 2025 planning. Do you know how you and your team will finish the year? Have you started thinking about what you want to achieve personally and professionally next year? Don’t leave it to the last minute!

About this newsletter

If you are new to this newsletter, here’s what makes it unique. Every two weeks, I share a chapter from my book It Depends: Writing on Technology Leadership 2012-2022, which Unit Circle Press released in March. These chapters are not in sequential order, but each one is a standalone piece. Please check out the archives on Substack. In addition, a podcast serializes the audiobook in order, released in the alternate weeks from this newsletter.

The Latest Podcast

The latest episode of the podcast is “Writing Useful Performance Reviews: Making a Raise Recommendation.” This episode is part three of the Writing Useful Performance Reviews series. In addition to the chapter itself, I talk about the importance of doing interview preparation as a candidate and how the corporate budgeting process drives the decisions around salary changes.

You can get the episode at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, directly via the RSS Feed, or wherever you get your podcasts (see pod.link for a more extensive list).

Drop me a line

I’m always eager to hear from you. If you have questions, want a signed copy, or simply want to say ‘hi!’, please email me at contact@itdependsbook.net. You can also share your thoughts on Substack or the various podcast platforms. Your feedback is invaluable, and I look forward to hearing from you.

About this week’s chapter

This week’s chapter discusses making time and space for my focused work. I wrote it when I was still working full-time in an office and was struggling to get heads-down time in my schedule and be in an environment where I could focus. As a leader, being physically present means being available to help people when needed, which makes it very hard when you need uninterrupted, focused time.

Now that I’ve been working in fully remote companies since the pandemic, it’s much easier to avoid office life interruptions (just turn off notifications). However, even though my office is set up well for working, I still find it valuable to follow many of the practices I adopted in the office, including going to a different location when I need extended focus time. It helps put me into a focused mindset, being in a place just to focus.

I will add another technique I’ve adopted since I switched to working from home. If you own a record player and some vinyl albums, listen to those instead of a streaming service. It may be counter-intuitive since there is an abundance of focus playlists, but I’ve found that having to get up and flip or change a record every twenty minutes acts as a perfect Pomodoro timer. I’ve also found that when I have streaming music going, I tend to fiddle with tracks or look for the next album or playlist I want to listen to instead of working. As I write this, I’m listening to the vinyl version of “Beat” by Bowery Electric.

This is chapter 8 of It Depends. The podcast version of this chapter was released on April 14^th.

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How I Get My Focused Work Done

Originally published on May 31, 2018

In management, we can become very “interrupt driven.” We get so used to distractions that we count on them. This dependency can make it very hard to focus when we need to. My calendar fills up with meetings. My unscheduled time is full of people stopping by to ask questions or chat. If I am not careful, I will find myself doing a lot of work at night.

I’ve tried many ways to improve my focused time over the years. Here are the things that work best for me.

Defrag your calendar

Every six months, I review my schedule. Recurring meetings tend to accumulate over time. This periodic review makes it easier to identify meetings that are no longer necessary. I also will try to reschedule my recurring meetings so that they group into blocks. Those 30 minutes or an hour between meetings are a waste of time. It isn’t enough time to work on anything significant. Grouping my meetings gives me larger blocks of time that I can use for focused work.

Block out your focused and loosely structured time

Now that your calendar has larger blocks of time, add recurring calendar entries to protect parts of your week for focused work. I need at least two hours to engage in a task, so I don’t block out less than that. Ideally, I will block out more.

Putting it on the calendar discourages other people from scheduling you at that time. Likewise, I also block out time for unstructured work, like reading e-mails. Reading e-mails or returning phone calls works well in those one-hour blocks between meetings. Having dedicated unstructured time also means less temptation to do unstructured work in my focused blocks.

Make sure you leave some gaps in your schedule to allow folks to add in a meeting if needed. I made the mistake of filling my calendar almost entirely for a while. As a result, people started to ignore my free/busy time because they couldn’t find any empty meeting slots.

Set out a “do not disturb” flag

In an open-plan environment, create a sign so people know not to disturb you.

I have a weird lamp on my desk. People know that I am trying to concentrate when the light is on. For the most part, they will let me focus. When I worked in an office, I would put a post-it on my door with a note asking people to send me an e-mail unless it was urgent.

Get out of the building

Sometimes to focus, you need to go elsewhere. For example, I will sometimes go to a nearby cafe, co-working space, or library if I need a few uninterrupted hours.

Turn off the notifications

There is a reason that you see this advice shared often. I turn on “Do Not Disturb” on my computer and phone. I have a separate Chrome “Person” with only the extensions I need for focused work and no notifications enabled. I quit all apps that are not the ones I need for my task. My phone goes into my pocket. I don’t want any electronic distractions.

If I must write something, I will sometimes do it longhand on paper first to eliminate distractions. Writing on paper works exceptionally well for me if it isn’t a topic I am excited about but need to get done. Also, once I have the first draft on paper, it is much easier to edit and refine it on the computer without being tempted to do something else.

Set a goal and reward yourself

We are so unfocused these days that gamifying your focused work may help. For example, when I finish the first draft of this post, I will spend 10 minutes on Twitter to reward myself for getting it done without interruptions.

Set aside a whole day for your focused work

It is sometimes challenging for a manager to have an entire day clear. If I have something vital to do, especially something time sensitive, I will clear the whole day to focus on it. Usually, I will also get out of the building to avoid other work distractions. I give myself a one-person off-site to get something done. I turn on my “out of office” e-mail responder with a note letting people know that I am working off-site and asking them not to disturb me unless it is critical. I will also schedule these “focus days” up to a quarter in advance to ensure I have them in case I want to use them.

Clean your desk

Cleaning the clutter in your eye-line is also very common and helpful advice. Things accumulate on my desk: mail, tchotchkes, magazines, books. When you are trying to focus, they can be distractions, or the general clutter can be a distraction. You don’t need to clean your desk thoroughly. You just don’t need to see that stuff. Put it all somewhere you can’t see when trying to focus.

Clean your computer desktop

Just like your physical environment can be a distraction, your virtual one can be too. All those files on your desktop are like an extensive to-do list of fun things instead of the work you need to focus on. So, create a “clutter” folder and move everything into it.

Create your focused playlist

Some people like to work in silence. I find that music helps me focus better, especially in busy environments. Different playlists help me focus on reading, programming, and writing. For reading, I like ambient music. For programming, it is post-rock and electronic music. When writing, I favor modern classical music. You may prefer silence, or music may help you. One important thing for me is that the music on my playlists is music I know well. Listening to new music can be too distracting for me in these situations.

Start with a mindfulness exercise

Especially on my focus days, I like to start with a ten or twenty-minute mindfulness exercise to help me clear away the other things on my mind and help me focus on the task at hand.

Make your exhaustive to-do list

One of the exercises I like from the Getting Things Done book by David Allen is exhaustively writing down everything you need to do. It is very freeing for me. I find that if I need to remember to do something, it will nag at me the whole time I am trying to focus. So if I write it down on paper or in a to-do app, it helps me put it aside for a while so I can concentrate.

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