Welcome to episode 143 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 3 of a book discussion series, providing more on practical tips for the execution of deep work focused on the remainder of rule # 1 from Cal Newport’s book.
Original Recording Date: 10-02-2021
Topics – 2nd Half of "Rule #1 – Work Deeply", Format Reminder, Execute Like a Business, Be Lazy, Shutdown Ritual
0:58 Part 3 of our discussion on Deep Work by Cal Newport

* Check out Part 1, Episode 141, where we discussed the “Why?” of the book, and Part 2, Episode 142, where we talked through the first half of the first rule.
* Format: We’ll do some summarization, then answer whether we believe the point, whether it applies to us, whether it makes us want to change, and what we anticipate changing, if anything.
* One thing we realized is that we want to model how we’re going to try to read books that have a big impact on us from now on
on by doing the following:

* Summarize big points.
* Take notes.
* Record our reactions.
* Record what we’re going to try to change.

Second Half of Rule #1 – Work Deeply
3:14 Execute Like a Business

* From The Four Disciplines of Execution (Franklin/Covey)
* This was ironic after discussing how businesses are missing deep work. This phrase refers more to the distinction between what to do and how to do it.

Discipline #1: Focus on the Wildly Important
Create a specific goal; Focus what you’re working on down to the minimum things that will lead to professional success. Instead of trying to accomplish many things, try to accomplish a very few key things very, very well.
Discipline #2: Act on the Lead Measures
Important goals involving deep work often have trailing metrics (measurements of the outcome) that come too late to make changes. Instead, make sure to measure lead metrics, the behaviors that should lead to the success measured by the trailing metrics. (Conflict with the idea of the metrics black hole?)
For knowledge workers, the leading metric is clear: time spent doing deep work in pursuit of the identified goal.
Discipline #3: Keep a Compelling Scoreboard
Measuring a behavior changes how you behave. Since the lead measure is hours spent in deep work in pursuit of the goal, the scoreboard should display that metric.
Discipline #4: Create a Cadence of Accountability
Have a regular accountability meeting to review metrics and commit to specific adjustments in order to keep on track. A weekly review which lasts a few minutes can help to draw attention to sagging or rising work metrics and figure out what is causing the good or bad effect (in order to enhance or correct it).
6:12 Reactions
Do I believe this?

* John: Yes. I’m wondering if I’m biased towards things that are asking me to make difficult choices and measure data.
* Nick: Yes. It’s extremely hard to pick the things on which you will focus. You start to think to yourself, “What if I pick something and want to change it later?” Maybe it’s fear of limiting options more than anything.