Once again, I bring another deep work philosophy presented by Carl Newport in his book Deep Work. The Monastic schedule is the only one of the four philosophies I planned to do for only a week instead of a month. This is possibly the schedule that can work the best since it minimises distractions. Although it’s also the least flexible.

The Monastic Philosophy

As the name might suggest, the idea behind this schedule is to focus only on deep work. Basically, hide yourself in a distraction-free environment so your only option is to work or do nothing. Some people move away from their lives to a quieter place just to focus on work. Isolation is usually key to maximising this philosophy. And because of it, it’s also the one most troublesome. Not everyone can go to their cabin or chalet in the woods and hide from the world, only to emerge again when the job is done. Practising this philosophy is a privilege. However, that doesn’t mean a few adaptions can’t be done to make it more accessible.

Scheduling Rules

As much as I would like to go away even for work, I can’t do that. So, I need to adapt this philosophy to my surroundings. For starters, the schedule will work for only 7 non-consecutive days. Weekends and Mondays are off because I already know how they go. There’s no reason to even bother.

I’m aiming for 4 hours of deep work per day, all during the morning, to leave the afternoon open. Every day, I’ll set up my workspace, decluttered and only with what I need for work, in this case, my laptop. I’ll set it up facing a window because if I were to go away, I would like to work with a view. Even if my view is not that interesting, it’s still better than a white wall. Just because I can’t go away doesn’t mean I won’t act as if I went.

Because it worked very well in the past, I’ll set alarm clocks to the starting time and finishing to keep track of time. I’ll turn the WiFi off my phone during the 4 hours. My objective is to plan 3 months’ worth of blog posts and schedule the next 4 posts, which represent about a month of content.

Day 1 & 2 – 9th and 10th of January

On the first day, I’m always very excited. I’m sticking to the rules. I even used the Forest app on my phone so I wouldn’t touch it and build a beautiful forest. Getting ahead of schedule is something I always wanted to do, but never quite works out for long. The first thing I did was to plan for the rest of January, February and March. Now, I have a direction set and only need to write away.

One thing I kept in mind was allowing myself to do nothing. Carl Newport even mentions that in his book. Setting a time for work and just sitting there if the motivation is fleeing. Soon enough, boredom will work its magic, and writing will suddenly become more appealing. So, I could just sit there, do nothing, and not feel guilty about it. After all, deep work is also about rewiring the brain to detach from the distraction of quick entertainment.

Everything is all fun and games until things, far from my control, are the cause of distraction. This is why, in this schedule, people usually fully isolate themselves by moving away. Because not all distraction is caused by your own lack of discipline or boredom. Sometimes to isolate yourself, you need to go far beyond turning off your phone.

While the first day was going fine, I felt it wasn’t as productive as it could be. And the second day was even worse. I was constantly interrupted, and I wasn’t comfortable in my working space, so I was nowhere near a deep work state of mind.

Day 1 word count: 1715
Day 2 word count: 1060

Day 3 & 4 – 11th and 12th of January

Setting up my workspace has become an interesting routine. In a way, it prepares my brain to start working. This is the third schedule I have tried, and I never worked in the same space. I’ve been changing every time. And while it’s troublesome to set up my workspace and then take it down every day, it’s helping me prepare for work. And the view is great. We are in the middle of Winter, and enjoying the sun streaming through the window every morning is amazing. I want this to become my permanent workplace.

Newport also mentions in his book that introducing a habit that can tell your brain it’s time to work is a great way to get into the mood and the correct mindset. I’ve heard of lighting a specific candle, grab a mug of coffee… It can be anything. And I wanted to find something that could do that for me. Now I realise that setting up my workspace was doing just that.

Although, by the third day, I’m already not being strict with the rules. I’m not setting alarms or turning off my phone, mostly because I’m feeling tired. Three days in and, I’m starting to feel weary of the days being all the same. Of having to sit down and write for 4 hours. I’m not a writer, nor do I want to be. I write because I enjoy it, and doing so much writing every day is wearing me down. There are other things I want to focus on like I did in the bimodal schedule, but right now, I can’t. I’m committed to trying this philosophy, and that’s what I’ll continue to do. Even if I’m ready to call it quits.

By day 4, I already had all the posts for January written down and ready for the last tweaks before scheduling them. In just 4 days of doing nothing but writing for more or less 4 hours each day, I managed to have 3 posts ready. Now, I’m beginning to see how well this schedule might work. It could be the best way to get me ahead of schedule. In just four days, I could work a month’s worth of content for the blog and the rest of the time focus on other things.

Day 3 word count: 648
Day 4 word count: 91

Day 5 & 6 – 16th and 17th of January

It’s the start of a new week, but the tiredness and boredom are settling in. Sitting down, even with a view, to do once again more writing is far from exciting. I want to go back to the bimodal schedule and do something else. Despite that, this is one of the days I write the most. So, while I was tired, it didn’t get in the way of working.

At this point, I couldn’t wait for the week to be over. At first, I thought I could do the schedule for 8 days instead of 7. But after my sixth day, I decided I would stop at seven. It was so hard to keep doing the same thing every day, to set my workspace and have to later clean it out, the writing and more writing, the inability to dedicate my time and attention to something else because I was focusing only on writing. It was hard on me.

I could see by now how every single schedule I tried so far was beneficial in various ways. Every single one of them has their merits. Although none matched the load of work I accomplished in such a short time. Apart from the tiredness, this is my new favourite philosophy.

Day 5 word count: 2365
Day 6 word count: 599

Day 7 – 18th of January

The final day. While I started to work later and later each day, I also saw that once I started writing, I got in the mood quickly and could write for a long time. A while ago, I tracked my motivation throughout the day and saw that my most productive hours were at noon and later in the afternoon. So, while I started to work later in the morning each day, I was also working closer to one of my natural motivation peaks. Even if I was feeling tired, the closer to noon I got, the easier it was to focus on writing. I sat down to write at 11 am and only stopped at 1 pm for lunch. But I could easily write for another hour or so. Despite feeling tired of doing nothing else but writing for the past 6 days, I could still continue writing. I wasn’t enjoying it, but I could still focus on the task.

I also stopped altogether to turn my phone notifications off, and that story of allowing myself to do nothing or to write… well… it’s harder to do that when the phone is right there to provide a good distraction at hand. I would deprive myself of reading because it was not part of the schedule and yet, I spent so much time looking at videos on YouTube. That defeats the purpose of the schedule as well. The brain can be so stupid at times. Instead of wasting time watching YouTube, I could use it to read. If I wasn’t strictly following the schedule, I might as well waste that time with something useful. But no. SMH

Day 7 word count: 3629

What I take away from this schedule

I adored experimenting with all these different schedules. I expected to love ones and hate others. Although that hasn’t happened yet. I know I say this with every single one of these philosophies, but I enjoyed it. This one is by far the most tiresome. I never had this problem with either the rhythmic or the bimodal schedules. And those lasted for a month, while this one was only for 7 days. So, while I was tired by the fourth day, when I sat down to write I still produced work even if in short bursts.

As I said above, this is the schedule that produced the best results overall. In just four days, I wrote, edited and scheduled a month’s worth of content. And my content is not that small. My posts are always around 1000 words plus editing plus proofreading plus photos plus schedule. The days I wrote the least were the ones I was proofreading and editing photos. So, while they don’t show much writing, it was all still progress to have the posts done and ready. And the best proof is that I reached my goal.

Now I know this schedule makes a big impact on me. But I also see how it’s probably the best answer to schedule my work for the blog. Because after all, this is just a hobby, and I don’t want it to take away more time than it has to from my other priorities. I want to find a balance. Dedicating 4 days in a month to the blog while I leave the rest free to focus on everything else is a great deal.

Right now, my objective is to set a monthly schedule to accommodate a 4-day writing exclusive. If that works out as I’m hopping, it means I’ve secured my writing routine. This doesn’t invalidate that I won’t take part in other schedules to complement and make this work out at its best. I just want to find a balance, and as I see it, this schedule is the one that is more likely to give me the balance I’m seeking.

The next and last philosophy

The last philosophy is possibly the one that will be the hardest for me to experiment with. I want to try it out before the end of this year, but I still don’t know when. The Journalistic philosophy doesn’t work on a schedule. That’s the objective. So, I really need to think about how I’m approaching this last philosophy.

I already have a general idea of how to go around to do it, but there’s still a lot of details to work out. This means, my final post on trying the deep work philosophies might take a while. With every philosophy, I want to try my hardest, I know I haven’t done that to the fullest, but at least I tried hard enough to see and feel how the different philosophies work. And I want to do the same with the last one.