Cal Newports, Deep Work (1) , reminded me that being comfortable in my own ministry skin is a pleasant place to be after years of self observation through eyes of everyone else. It means I read leadership books or theology material with a degree of detachment because I\u2019m not looking for the idea, concept or principle that is going to revolutionise my ministry or leadership abilities. Rather, I am looking for small shifts and tiny moments that help me be myself in the most useful way to others. But knowing ourselves \u2013 our best selves before God, at this moment, requires the deep work of spiritual formation as the platform for deep work on the mechanisms of our ministry leadership.<\/p>\n
After concluding my school years I became an apprentice mechanic fitter with the railways. At the end of my training I pronounced to an a Locomotive Maintainer, which simply meant I repaired broken locomotives. A big part of the training was to understand your tools and when to use them. On any job particular job in the field I would carry a small bag holding what I needed, even though I hadn\u2019t seen what needed to be done. I was given enough information to assist me in making decisions regarding what to carry with me. And, part of tool choice was knowing what job really was. Over the years I learned that the real job was not what people told me. More often than not I was given symptoms, and symptoms are not what need addressing \u2013 the problem is. Tools that fix symptoms don\u2019t fix problems. Symptoms are merely distractions. Contextually, I think this is what Newport is getting at when he talks about draining the shallows and removing distractions.<\/p>\n
I can still remember spending an infuriating amount of time looking at my tools and wondering what to take. By the time I was a master tradesman, my intuition was honed through long hours of pondering in the early years and still failing to see the bigger picture. Over time I developed the ability to choose quickly because the hard work of learning and intuiting had been done. These days, leadership is little different. Every book I read is little more than an addition to a large collection of tools. Like fixing locomotives, the trick is to know what tools to draw upon and which to avoid.<\/p>\n
This book is different because it is not really a tool, but rather a lesson in tool use. Newports, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World encourages that journey of giving time to understanding and reflecting on the important and not the urgent. Getting the job done is important in most settings, but getting the right job done in the right way requires distraction free thinking with focussed \u2018seeing\u2019 that takes time to develop \u2013 it takes practice. Newports worrying thought is that focussed clarity is rarely a feature of modern leadership consumed with reactionary and distracted tool use: short term successes for long term failure.<\/p>\n
I am a natural thinker so Newports book makes sense to me. I find it easy to carve out time to attend to what I see as important vs extraneous. However, there is a \u2018who\u2019 and \u2018what\u2019 question to address when it comes to discerning the \u2018important\u2019 from \u2018distraction\u2019. My colleagues are very different from me, so the \u2018who\u2019 will determine the \u2018what\u2019 when it comes to deep work. That being the case, it has reminded me to remind staff that deep work is something they all need to do, but in their own way, given their personalities, aspirations, work requirement and outcomes. But as a leader of staff, such an encouragement comes with honouring of that deep work as important and not merely a distraction from short term shallow gains.<\/p>\n
The book is something of a precursor to Digital Minimalism (2) which contains a greater unpacking of the need to lock down the internet, refrain from social media and get your head in the game of a distraction free life, with the emphasis being on freedom. So, having read the the later book, there was a feeling d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu. However I am putting it on the list of books staff should read for their own personal leadership development.<\/p>\n
1. Newport, Cal. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2016.
\n2. Newport, Cal. Digital Minimalism: On Living Better with Less Technology. Penguin, Kindle Edition, 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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