The science is clear — it takes an average of about 25 minutes to return to a focused state after an interruption.
You can do the math on the impact that has on a regular work day. Between Slack notifications, a gazillion weekly meetings (because agile), and good old self-inflicted distraction, I suspect very few software engineers in the industry have regular, uninterrupted, long stretches of time to focus on crafting great code.
In On The Shortness of Life, Seneca wrote:
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested.”
Standups, plannings, groomings, reviews, “syncs” and “alignments”… how much time is being wasted in today’s tech organizations? And how does that affect people’s mental health, as well as the company’s bottom line? These cannot be easily quantified (or at all) and because it seems we live in a world where only what gets measured gets managed, the issue becomes something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In this week’s book recommendation, there’s a principle:
The Principle of Least Resistance: In a business setting, without clear feedback on the impact of various behaviors to the bottom line, we will tend toward behaviors that are easiest in the moment. (…) The Principle of Least Resistance, protected from scrutiny by the metric black hole, supports work cultures that save us from the short-term discomfort of concentration and planning, at the expense of long-term satisfaction and the production of real value.
Everyone wants to build the next billion-dollar company. But can world class outcomes be achieved using anything less than world class habits and behaviors? Can we really build great software consistently and sustainably, if our people’s time is hopelessly fragmented, if attaining deep focus is the exception rather than the norm?
And that’s where this post today is something of a mea culpa.
You see, upon reflection, over the last few years leading teams, I have been part of this problem. While I believe management’s job is to create the conditions for people to thrive, I have focused too much on what the company needs and not nearly enough on what the people need in order to achieve what the company needs. Too often, that’s simply helping them guard their time and attention.
So, I pledge to do better next time. I am not on a crusade to “kill meetings because meetings are toxic” (bad meetings are). Rather, it is about being consequent with the knowledge that producing quality takes focus, and helping those in my charge create that space. I cannot hold my team accountable if I don’t hold my own end of the bargain in creating the conditions for them do their best work.
I wish more leaders worked on the business, instead of in the business. From where we stand right now, I suspect the impact on value creation would be hard to comprehend. Instead, in a tech world where (with honourable exceptions), most “manage by spreadsheet”, and are driven by backwards ideas of scientific management, we are witnessing value destruction of a scale we also cannot comprehend.
Because, again, we cannot measure it.
What about you? In what ways are you enabling flow for your team? Let me know in the comments. 👇
3 Articles
✍️ The Science of Speaking is the Art of Being Heard
Everyone agrees communication is key to effective collaboration. What we seldom realize is that we all hear things differently — filtered through our own individual values, beliefs and identity. It’s not just about what is said, it’s also about how the listener reacts. In this article, CEO coach Khalid Halim dissects four “meta-models” to help us communicate more effectively with each unique individual around us.
✍️ The Resonance of Writing
We often tend to think and act in a binary, absolute sort of way: either we like or dislike something and somehow it will always be like that. But how many of us hated a book we had to read in school only to devour it years later? In this short piece, Salman Ansari takes inspiration from physics and forms an interesting metaphor to help explain why (and when) certain books resonate while others don’t.
✍️ Avoid Burnout and Start Saying No. Here’s How.
Saying “No” belongs to that holy category of “things easier said than done”. In fast-paced environments, like startups, it’s nothing short of a survival technique. After all, asking for something to be done is infinitely easier than actually doing it. In this very actionable blog post, technology leader Pat Kua, enumerates a few useful approaches to help us, regardless of rank, say “No” in constructive ways… and keep our sanity.
2 Videos
📺 The Thing About Burnout
To complete this week’s double-whammy on avoiding burnout, this talk by Ashley McNamara gives us another side of the problem — the insidious ways burnout creeps up on us. That Github green squares contribution chart you’re so proud of? Might double as a good burnout indicator. And the fact that an estimated two thirds of full-time employees experience some degree of burnout is, to me, an incredible failure of leadership. We must do better.
📺 Scaling Yourself
Have you ever stopped to really reflect on how many things you have to juggle on any given week at work? Especially if you’re in management or some sort of executive role, the sheer amount of inputs and context switching is truly astounding. What is it doing to our minds? How do we deal with it without regularly going bananas? Using a healthy dose of humour, Scott Hanselman illuminates the problem and suggests some pragmaticx§ strategies to deal with it.
1 Book 📚
Recently, while abroad on a short vacation, I felt the urge to re-read this week’s book. I enjoyed it the first time around when I read it a few years ago, but realized I didn’t really adopt its philosophy at all. And I got the ~5h daily average screen time on my iPhone to prove it.
Ridiculous, right? (What’s yours, by the way?)
In any case, as I already touched on in this week’s introduction above, we have a little bit of a problem with distraction, lack of focus and mismanagement of time. If that’s not you, congratulations, and feel free to stop reading. Everybody else, this one will at least make you think.
The premise is simple, its implications vast:
The Deep Work Hypothesis: The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.
I’m a big fan of Cal Newport, having read and enjoyed So Good They Can’t Ignore You and Digital Minimalism. Personally, reading his books brings me a sense of calm and that’s part of why I gravitated towards re-reading Deep Work recently.
The book is divided into two high-level sections: The Idea, and The Rules. The former exposes the problem alongside the opportunity for depth in this day and age. The latter is a set of tools and techniques to help you tailor your days to enable deeper work in a way that suits your particularly constraints while, importantly, catering to life outside work. Paradoxically, more deep work (done right) means more free time.
There’s much to explore in these 300+ pages of easy, but pragmatic writing. Many times I read in horror what seemed to be descriptions of my own perpetual shallow work habits. What I kept thinking about, and Newport doesn’t shy away from that discussion either, is how shallow work compounds in teams and organizations, and the nefarious consequences of that.
The flipside, though, is how much better we can do if only we manage to break the spell of constant distraction and attention grabbing. That’s where I think Newport’s voice has been critically important over the years and Deep Work in particular can be a guidebook for helping individual and teams work more inline with what the work actually requires. And that’s a real business competitive advantage.
🙌🏽 Thank you for reading! Enjoyed this week’s edition? Have feedback on how I can make this more valuable to you? I’d love to hear it — my DMs are open on Twitter or just write me a comment below.
✍️ Find some more of my ramblings on tech and org stuff over at The Evolutionary Manager.
👉 You can also follow me on Twitter @prla