But first of all, what do we understand by focus time?
Focus time is during working hours when you can give in as far as possible to deep work. According to Cal Newport, deep work can be described as professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that pushes your cognitive capabilities to their limit. During that time of day, engineers code, lawyers prepare writs and other legal documentation, etc.
Even though we understand instinctively what focus time is and why we should nurture it, providing the right amount of it tends to be very tricky.
How does lack of focus time negatively affect employee experience?
A lack of focus time can drastically reduce knowledge workers’ efficiency and, thus, the company's results.
The consequences can be even more dire for the employee experience, which is how employees feel about everything they undergo throughout their journey.
“Focus on being productive instead of busy.” –Tim Ferriss
Employees without sufficient focus time, who spend time at busy work and attend more or less important meetings, can’t fulfil their work-related goals during working time. Consequently, employees have to choose between the risk of poor performance and working overtime, which will detriment their work-life balance. This can cause resentment towards the work environment, excess stress, and burnout.
How much focus time is sufficient, and how can I achieve it?
It really depends on who you ask. Cal Newport claims that producing valuable output requires three to four hours of uninterrupted and carefully directed concentration. Jake Knap and John Zeratsky, authors of Make Time, point at the block of sixty to ninety minutes to get in the zone of something and do a really excellent job. Here at exec.ninja, based on the experience of our managers and engineers, we claim that you need at least two hours to get into your deep work mode and on the path to excel at what you currently do.
How can I maximize the amount of focus time?
First, you should verify your work calendar in search of two hours and longer blocks of time, where you can give in only to deep work. Whether you prefer to work deeply before or after your lunch is up to you. If you have any problems finding and designating those hours on your own, try out exec.ninja. With exec.ninja, you can easily set up a focus time rule and let our algorithm analyze your schedule to identify the best time for deep work.