As predicted…I kept feeling the need to check my phone or pull away and do something else. In the end, I did better by setting short time frames to focus on work and the reward myself with a small break.  So, I guess there will be times when focusing for 3 hours at a time will be easy, and other...

It’s 8:45 on Monday morning, and I feel like I could be very easily distracted by many many things. You know when sometimes you’re just in that frame of mind? Anything and everything could seem more important than the actual work I promised myself that I’d do.  Here’s what I could do instead of doing the actual work: The list...

Really enjoyed my session today. I kept my focus on the research. I’m still finding a lot of rich ideas in my journals. In fact, I’ve only really tapped into one journal [Daily Stoic] from the period of time I’m looking at. I’ve still got a few other resources to tap into – I was using Evernote a lot during...

[Note to self] Reasons why you need to do deep work: Other thoughts about this project:  OK, it’s 9:20am – let’s get to it. ...

I figured out why I’m finding this so difficult. I’m trying to write the book while I’m still researching it.  So, next deep work session I’m going back the research and I’m going to dig further and deeper.  It’s all good. I still got a few hours of writing done, I still managed to get clear on a few things....

7:43am. I want to write this morning, but I’m having to embrace an imperfect environment for it.  I’v got the school run at 8:30am, and then a call I need to take between 10am and 11am.  Of course I can, I just need to keep turning up, and apply the same rules.  So, this morning might not be 3 hours...

The writing is getting tough. I think I’ve done much of the easy stuff, and now I have to go deeper and start really challenging myself to write better.  I’m thinking about: I’ve got a lot of work to do. It hit me today that I’ve not really done any real writing yet – up until this point I’ve been...

It’s been a while since I sat down for a writing session [I just looked back at the journal and it’s been a month. Lesson – time passes really quickly!] It’s 8:43 on Monday 17th May, and I’m ready to get back into it.  The past three or four weeks have been a combination of work and being a parent:...

I didn’t want to spend more time doing research today (curating content from my journals), I can pick this up again next time – instead I wanted to actually start writing the book. So, my three hours were spent taking those individual entries that I’ve already curated from October 2019 to March 2020 and editing them into something that could...

There are many other things I’d like to do this morning. This is going to be my fourth deep working writing session and this is the first time I’ve felt like I could just skip it. Changing my schedule from a daily writing plan to twice weekly deep writing sessions has worked really well for me. It has given me...

A little shorter than I would have liked, but it went well. Short bathroom break in the middle but I was focused throughout and I feel good about the progress I made. I went through journal entries from January 2020 to March 2020. The index cards beside me are very helpful – I took down some quotes from my journal...

I’m about to start my third deep work writing session. I can’t start thinking that I’ve got this and I know what I’m doing, yet. I need to keep reminding myself about the conditions that need to be set for me to write this book.  Today’s session starts at 9:30am and ends at 11:45am – 2 hours and 15 minutes....