When we’re busy, we aren’t getting important stuff done. We’re doing 50 different small tasks that are akin to treading water while the day goes by.
When we don’t set aside big blocks of hours at a time to sit and do our work, we get no deep knowledge work done. We might be able to check small tasks off of a to-do list, but we can’t sit and think and build the structure of our next project.
When we break our work hours apart with noncognitively-demanding, logistical, or office-administrative type tasks, we don’t create new value, we simply tread water.
We pay the bills, but we’re not building that new company.
If you can do tasks while having background distractions, you’re not performing deep knowledge work and generating new value. Stacks of small, rapid tasks or working with distractions is fragmented attention.
We must practice setting aside time, canceling distractions, and focusing for an hour at a time. Through this, you will realize a mode of working that you never before realized you’re capable of.