Embrace Deep Work

by exchangetradedideas | Sep 25, 2022 | growth, knowledge, productivity

Embrace the concept of deep work

While sitting at my desk, trying to read a paragraph for at least the third time, an email alert pops up!

The latest finance newsletter just dropped, better check out the latest stock quotes. Meanwhile my mobile phone buzzes and I feel the urge to check it immediately.

Oh, my wife send me a cute cat video!

Focusing back on the paragraph I read a few minutes ago, I realize I have to start all over again because my brain does not remember a thing!

This short scene is just one example of the vicious cycle of concentration and distraction, which repeats a dozen times throughout the day.

Sound familiar to you, too?

I may not exaggerate when I assert, that most of today’s knowledge workers’ day looks quite similar to what I just described!

Welcome to the everyday hustle to stay focused amid a stream of information flooding our cognitive systems.

At the same time, our ability to focus has diminished over the previous decades, making it hard to create meaningful and valuable work.

For my part, I’m fed up with this never-ending cycle and will do something about it!

You can too!

Today’s working environment is designed for collaboration and instant communication. Open office plans, as well as corporate instant massaging services like Teams or Slack, are meant to create a constant connection within the workforce. Additionally, the average worker sends 40 and receives 120 emails a day and spends a huge amount of time doing so. (The Guardian 2019)

To complete the struggle, we spend nearly the rest of our time available in video or conference calls. In the majority of cases, these activities don’t contribute value to our “core” work but they even have a detrimental effect on our ability to do so.

In a 2005 Study, the authors (Mark, Gonazels, and Harris) examined the degree of fragmentation of a typical workday. The subjects were a group of IT professionals employed at a big finance firm. Throughout their study, they found that the average worker of the sample only concentrated ~11 minutes on a single task until switching to the next one. As a reason for this rapid task switching, researchers identified external and internal factors. Interruptions by colleagues as well as changing priorities demanded by incoming tasks. were cited as the biggest contributors to fragmentation.

As a result, workers felt extremely uncomfortable with their fragmented work and their corresponding lack of productivity.

Since this seems to be a major theme in today’s working environment, let’s try to get a grasp of the reasons behind these developments and what we can do, to not only feel better about it but increase the value of our work.

In a world, where it is becoming increasingly difficult to concentrate on one thing at a time, the ability to do so is becoming an asset you should have on your balance sheet.

The Concept of shallow work and deep work

To get to the core of a problem, you first have to define it’s key parameters as well as the desired outcome. Therefore, we need to capture the different states of work we experience throughout the workday and strive to minimize those which are detrimental to our success.

Shallow work

For our purpose, shallow work should be defined as work that is artificial and does not contribute value to our core tasks.

Shallow work oftentimes includes the following activities, which in general are administrative by nature:

Monitoring your inbox and responding to emails
Scheduling meetings
Making administrative phone calls
Video calls without a clear agenda
Creating PowerPoint slides

Shallow work is insidious because a day filled with it makes you feel productive! You are exhausted by it and because of the high amount of emails sand and calls made, you even are perceived like it.

I don’t exaggerate when I state, that everone knows this particular feeling after a day full of back-to-back zoom calls and emails!

Unfortunately, in the majority of cases, this type of work doesn’t resemble the high-value work you should strive for during your day.

I admit, there is a baseload of shallow work anybody has to cope with, to be a good functioning part of the overall team. No one will perceive you as a team player if you are unable to reach or don’t fulfill your administrative day-to-day duties.

Nevertheless, a bit of planning will help you minimize the time you spend with shallow work and increase the time spent with the higher value deep work

Deep work

In contrast to the shallow work I just defined, deep work is of high value to your core responsibilities and moves the needle for your business.

You have to immerse in hard thinking and spend a vast amount of mental capacity to get it done.

To get a grasp of the concept, I made a non-exhaustive list of examples of deep work:

Writing a sales proposal for a customer
Crafting an investment memo for your board
Doing research for a specific market you want to target
Writing code for an app you develop

Deep work always has some kind of strategic thinking embedded in its core, therefore we need long periods of uninterrupted time to succeed.

The conflict between shallow and deep Work

There is a ravaging war going on in our brains for the capacity to perform deep work.

Briefly summarized, our brains a wired to emphasize shallow work over deep work! It is more convenient for us to get a dopamine hit by answering emails, instead of solving cognitively challenging problems.

The feedback loops for shallow work are much shorter and rewards are more easily obtained. In addition, the modern workplace oftentimes isn’t designed for performing deep work. Open floor plans and instant messaging communication devices inhibit our ability to concentrate on one task at a time, which is crucial for creating valuable work.

The way we interact with our friends and family as well as our broader social life doesn’t help either.

Who is not familiar with the urge to check one’s smartphone a dozen times an hour? At least I am guilty of this type of behavior! I suggest you try to track your screen time and activity with a suitable app and you will be SHOCKED!

I’m honest with you, this is not a war you can win, but a constant struggle! Almost any app on the planet is competing for the limited amount of concentration you have.

How to get better at performing deep work

Although the odds are against us, let’s try to tilt them at least a bit in our favor. This is all you need to get ahead!

I recognized the following methods to be helpful to me to develop a more focused attitude:

Make deep work your lifestyle

To have only the smallest kind of chance of making a difference, you have to not only try to incorporate small pieces of deep work into your day but make it the other way around. Embrace the concept of deep work and try to adhere to it in the tiniest parts of your life. For example, resist the urge to reach for your smartphone during any interruption. We have primed our brains to be distracted constantly, so during the slightest break, we crave distraction. Try to be present in the moment, and notice your surroundings!

The overreaching principle is, to lengthen the time periods without distractions for your brain! You will notice significant changes immediately.

Create routines to minimize the expense of mental energy

Throughout the day, you will lose a lot of cognitive energy and will be more susceptible to the old habits of distraction. If you create your personalized deep work routines, you will conserve more energy and willpower. For example, I try to not touch my smartphone until I have written my daily journal, which takes me maybe 15 minutes in the morning. The lack of interruptions helps me put down my thinking more precisely.

Create dedicated deep work slots

To increase the actual time spend doing deep work, try to schedule ahead dedicated deep work slots throughout your day or week. Otherwise, other people’s agendas will fill up your calendar and impact your efforts. You will also be less vulnerable to shallow work during these blocked periods of time. During the deep work slots, make yourself hard to reach, close your email tab and set your phone on flight mode. With a little bit of training, you should be able to resist the urge to constantly crave distraction.

Act on the lead metrics of deep work

I know that the actual workday can get messy sometimes and you won’t be always able to stick to your thoroughly crafted plans. Nevertheless, pick some lead metrics (e.g. total time spend doing deep work or total words written per day) and try to maximize them.

Do the work and the results will follow!

The continuity of this effort will pay off massively. I once utilized this during the preparation for my CFA exams, where I maximized total hours spend going without interruption. The results were amazing, you don’t need to plan for everything in advance, act on the lead metrics and the rest will take care of itself.

Prioritize and embrace downtime

This one is critical because oftentimes people confuse spending more time with being more successful. I’m a huge proponent of being effective and I assert, that I’m getting more things done in 6 hours than a lot of people in 10. There is a limit to your cognitive ability, once exhausted, results will deteriorate rapidly. Be aware of your mental capacity and build downtime into your life.

I recognized spending time in nature, reading, or meditating restores my brain capacity quickly.

Conclusion

Overall, in todays world, deep work is getting extremely rare! If you are able to cultivate this valuable skill, it will be an asset few possess. I admit, that this is an issue I have been battling with for a long time.

Every time I increase my efforts to perform deep work, I feel empowered more calm and overall more productive and happy.

I can only encourage you to experiment with deep work habits and judge the advantages for yourself.

Additional resources

Cal Newport’s Book “Deep Work”

An extensive summary of the Deep Work concept

A NY Times article on the “art of focus”

A NY Times article on the trap of being busy

A long-form article on why downtime is important

Farnam Street on the dangers of email

On persistence or how I aced the CFA exams

by exchangetradedideas | Jan 9, 2022 | growth, knowledge

On Persistence, or how I aced the CFA exams

Anyone can achieve anything if he is willing to put in the work necessary to achieve their goal. This sounds like the classical catchphrase from a motivation guru but I truly believe in this mantra. I’d like to share with you some impressions of my journey to earn my CFA charter (A placeholder for any goal you may like to achieve) and the ups and downs I went through, the mistakes I made, and what helped me ultimately to achieve my goal.

Spoiler alert! Nor was it easy or an overnight miracle… I put in hours and hours of work, challenging my body and mind to the max. Hopefully, you can take a piece of advice or two and apply it to the specific challenge you encounter at the moment and ultimately be successful. There are countless guides to pass the CFA exams, so I don’t want to repeat the obvious things and only want to point out what worked for me.

I was just one semester shy of finishing my masters degree back in 2017 when I set course for the journey I went trough over the next 3 years. In retrospect, to be honest, it is hard to recollect what lead me to the decision to pursue the CFA charter, it may was because I wanted to push myself (I had the feeling that my learning potential was not maxed out) or the curiosity to learn, or both.

Besides studying at the university, I was working part-time in the asset management department of an insurance company and a colleague of mine had recently earned his charter. We had a lot of discussions about the value of the program as well as the possibilities it offered. My employer at that time also heavily encouraged me to do it and supported me financially as well.

I decided to enroll, knowing I had an enormous challenge in front of me.

With this short memo, like to point out some general principles I adhered to and how persistence helped me master this challenge. You will also find some useful resources, which can be used during preparation at the end of the article.

Take your time to prepare properly

Round about Christmas in 2017 I started my journey with some research on how to prepare for the exam in a proper way. First, I was stunned by the amount of work this would require, on average candidates put in more than 300 hours of preparation to pass each level. In hindsight, it was a lot more than that.

A lot of websites suggest you set out a well-thought-through study plan to achieve your learning goals in time and don’t get in a hurry when the exam deadline approaches. I often tried to apply this mantra but hadn’t much success with it. I frequently failed to keep up with the schedule, resulting in more concentrated study periods in the final months before the exams.

Nevertheless, I’d like to outline the approach, which worked fine for me.

I used an insight I developed throughout my time at the university. During exam preparation, I frequently tried to do anything I could (mentally and physically), so if I would fail the exam, I wouldn’t have to blame myself for not putting in the work. During the semester I usually kept study efforts loosely, only doing enough to stay up to date and have a sufficient overview of the course material I needed to cover since I also wanted to have some kind of life besides working and studying. After 3/4 of the semester I would pick up efforts continuously and roundabout six to eight weeks before the exams, I started sitting for study sessions of 8-12 hours a day. With the exams approaching, my efforts would become even more extreme, studying 12+ hours a day, seven days a week. I optimized my whole day for optimal study performance.

In retrospect, this wasn’t a healthy study schedule but it laid the foundation I used for completing the CFA exams at each first attempt. Through the years I learned valuable lessons on how to improve my study performance and the corresponding results.

When I sat for the first exam, you could only apply for the June or December sessions. I always went for the June option.

To make sure, there is sufficient time to cover all the course material, I suggest you start at least six months prior to the respective exams. I always used the Christmas holidays to kick off my study efforts and make myself familiar with the course material. First, I read and re-read the course material over the first 3 months of the preparation period and after that, started answering the practice questions and mock exams.

Over the years I discovered that the information would be best remembered when I read and re-read the material and complete the practice questions in parallel. I used a very naive technique to ensure I did everything I could to pass the exams. I tried to repeat this process as many times as possible until ca. 2 weeks prior to the exams. Usually, I was able to cover the course material three times during this period.

Prior to the exams I always took two weeks off to fully concentrate on my preparation. This period consisted of intensive study sessions, where I focused on my weak spots as well as areas with the highest weighting. Throughout the preparation, I did between 2 and 3 mock exams each. It is important to simulate actual exam conditions as much as possible.

Don’t panic, if your score on the mock exams isn’t around 90% consistently. I scored between 60-80% in all of my mock exams and managed to ace the exams on the first attempt. Nevertheless, at the end of your study period, you should be able to score around 70-80%, to have enough confidence for the exam and don’t need to pray for good luck.

Every level of the CFA program comes with a thick book of formulas, usually around 100 pages strong. To counter my forgetfulness, two weeks prior to the exams I would rehearse the whole formula book once a day. So at the end of the preparation, I knew most of the formulas covered. Often I studied formulas before sleeping time and I had the impression that I was able to imprint the formulas into my brain during the night and ultimately remembered more.

Use additional learning material

The CFA curriculum is known for its enormous depth and easily contains a few thousand pages for each level. There are some areas where you won’t need to study the whole thing to master the exams. I have made the experience that the additional learning material (e.g. Efficient learning, Schweser, etc.) is valuable in terms of providing a sufficient summary of the curriculum as well as a ton of practice questions and mock exams. Personally, I went with the efficient learning materials for each level, which in hindsight was a great investment.

Helpful resources were various websites regarding the preparation for the CFA program www.analystforum.com or 300hours.com, which provide you with useful insider tips for preparation. Besides putting in the necessary work, I’d propose that the additional learning material is the second most important key to acing the exams.

Time managment is key

One mission-critical thing during the exam is the lack of time to complete it. The exams are designed to challenge your time management skills. I used a simple method to make sure, I don’t waste too much time and answer all exam questions. To speed up your performance during the exam it is essential to practice using your calculator correctly. You need to know the different calculation methods and how to switch between them easily.

If I had to think about how to solve the question I was working on in an extensive way, I skipped it and marked it to solve it at a later stage, if there was time left at the end. I suggest you do the same if you don’t remember how to approach a specific problem immediately. Otherwise, you will run into severe problems regarding finishing the exam in time. You can come back to questions you skipped initially when you solved all questions you are certain about. Since most parts of all three levels are in some kind of multiple-choice questions, I highly recommend at least checking one of the possible answer boxes so you may get lucky by ticking the correct one.

Grant yourself enough rest, sleep well and exercise

One monumental thing I learned throughout my years of preparation is to grant yourself enough rest, to perform on a high level consistently. Therefore, during the second and third exams, I limited my average study session to around 8 hours, to get enough rest as well as to have time for other activities. This pays enormous dividends later on because your brain will perform more reliably.

During the whole process of mastering the CFA program, I went through multiple periods of extreme mental and emotional stress. I have to admit, that I even went through dark periods a few times during the preparation for the first exam due to the overwhelming amount of stuff to cover and I felt that I didn’t do enough. It may sound esoteric but I made the experience that meditation, regular exercise, and eating well build a good base for optimal mental performance. Especially during the last exam preparation, I studied for 8 hours, exercised for one to one and a half hours during the lunch break, and adhered to a more or less strict diet. As a result, it felt like there was a lot less stress on my mind as well as my body.

I also used the app headspace to sometimes meditate between study sessions or to listen to focus music while studying. It felt a bit like resetting my brain to take on the next chapters of the curriculum. It never fully restored my mental abilities during the day but did only enough to be a bit more focused and keep going. For me, it’s the small details that make the difference between passing and failing.

Plan your exam days and create a familiar environment

This piece of advice may have been more valuable as the CFA exams weren’t structured as computer exams. Nevertheless, I think these tips are of equal use today. I took all my CFA exams in Frankfurt. The first two exams took place at the big exhibition hall and the last one was held in various decentralized locations where you sat in supervised computer rooms.

Before my first exam, I searched for a hotel, which was within walking distance of the testing site as well so I didn’t have to think about how to get to the testing site. I also looked for hotels that weren’t perceived as accommodation for students or people looking to party, since you need uninterrupted sleep to perform best. I did this to minimize possible distractions and create some kind of positive and familiar environment, once I knew this worked for me.

Between study sessions, you are allowed to leave the exam site for one to one and a half hours. I recommend you take some snacks with you, so you don’t have to search for food and waste valuable resting time. Go with some light snacks which don’t fill up your stomach or cause a food coma. Some fruits to restore your glycogen levels in your brain are good as well.

Conclusion

To master any challenge you may face right now, you need to show a high degree of persistence. In this world, there is hardly anything given to you for free.

I hope you took a few things from this short memo on how to master complicated challenges and develop persistence. There is no secret sauce, only work and a few tweaks you can make to tilt the odds in your favor. I’m sure there are a dozen more useful tips out there and look forward to learning more about being persistent.

Additional resources

www.analystforum.com

https://300hours.com/

https://www.efficientlearning.com/cfa