When I decided to buy Deep Work by Carl Newport, I had no idea the journey it would put me through. I was reading about a different approach to work, a change of perspective when what I found on those pages motivated me to experiment with different schedules. And today is finally the time to look back on the first experiment: the Rhythmic schedule.

As this is considered the easiest deep work philosophy to archive, I started my journey with it. After all, I only need to work every day at the same time for 90 minutes. Sounds simple enough. Honestly, it wasn’t that easy, but it taught me a lot more about my work, myself and how much I can accomplish.

Rhythmic schedule rules

My deep work sessions are to work on blog posts, so I can somewhat compare each philosophy using the same project. Although I also what to understand which parts of my work are considered deep work and which parts are shallow work. So my objective is to write, but I will allow myself to do other things as a way of testing.

From Monday to Sunday, every single morning, from 6:30 am to 8 am, I have to be at my desk working on content for the blog. I have to wake up at 6 am, read for 30 minutes, get up and sit at my desk to write.

My phone and laptop have to be disconnected from the internet. And I have to keep a glass of water next to my computer to drink while I work.

Every night, I schedule the next day, including what I’m supposed to work on in my deep work session. This way, I’ll avoid letting my sleepy brain make that decision in the morning.

In those 90 minutes of work, I have to accomplish 900 words minimum. And at the end of the month, I have to have finished 4 posts, including photos, SEO, and formatting. Everything has to be done and ready to post.

Week 1 – 19th to 25th of September

The first day was rough. My brain was lazy, and after half an hour, it kept screaming at me to stop for the day. However, I kept on writing since I wasn’t going to fail on day one. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in a deep work state of mind, even though I was working. And so, I can look at this experiment in two ways: the quantifiable work I produced or the times I was utterly focused on the task at hand. And I think it’s better to look at the amount of work done instead of how concentrated I was. At least for now.

In the next few days, it became clear: being at my desk by 6:30 was hard to archive. I’m a morning person so waking up early isn’t a big problem. Although not having enough hours of sleep is. If I don’t sleep for at least 7 hours, it becomes harder and harder to wake up and stay awake. I get extremely lazy, and reading gets me even more sleepy instead of waking me up.

But not everything is bad news. I started to enjoy these small little sessions. It could be hard to get up, but once I was in front of the computer, sipping my water and writing, I got in the zone, as the cool kids say. I don’t believe I was fully in deep work mode, although I was focused and even managed to surpass my word goal for the day more than once.

Goals:

Minimum word count: 6 300
Hours of deep work: 630 minutes (10 hours and 30 minutes)
Days working: 7

Week 1 results:

Words wrote: 4617
Hours worked: 470 minutes (7 hours and 50 minutes)
Days worked: 6 (missed Sunday)

Work done:

• Drafting “Turning Reading Into a Competition”
• Drafting “In Review: In a Dark Dark Wood”
• Revise draft “Turning Reading Into a Competition”
• Revise “In Review: In a Dark Dark Wood”
• Started drafting “Project TBR Zero”
• Started drafting “Deep Work: Trying the Four Philosophies”

Week 2 – 26th of September to 2nd of October

My pursuit for help to wake up my brain continued. From TV to Netflix, to Animal Crossing, to reading, even Sudoku! I tried various activities to help me in the first minutes of the day. But sadly, nothing worked. Carl Newport advises in the book to attach these 90 minutes to a routine. This way, you are preparing your brain for work time, although it has been a while since I had one. Last year, I would wake up early and read for at least one hour in bed. Now, I can’t even understand how I could do it and not fall back asleep. And so, not having that routine to kick start the day, it’s harder to stick to the 90 minutes sessions.

This was also the first week I tried to do other tasks besides writing. I had keychains to make for a couple of orders. So I tried doing them in a distraction-free environment. For starters, my mind was bored out of itself. Wrapping around the thread is a mindless task. I can listen to the latest book gossip when I do it, that won’t affect the outcome. Assembling the tassels together requires a bit more attention but not so much that it requires deep concentration. I’ve done it so many times that it became an automatic process.

At least, I’ve learned another thing: tassels need to be kept out of deep work time. They don’t even require the slightest amount of concentration. So from here on out, even in other deep work philosophies, I know to keep the keychains and the Etsy shop management for shallow work periods only.

Goals:

Minimum word count: 6 300
Hours of deep work: 630 minutes (10 hours and 30 minutes)
Days working: 7

Week 2 results:

Words wrote: 2175
Hours worked: 250 minutes (4 hours and 10 minutes)
Days worked: 4 (missed Monday, Saturday, Sunday)

Work done:

• Started drafting “The Hunger Games Trilogy Review”
• Updating Rhythmic Philosophy progress
• Making 2 key-chains

Week 3 – 3rd to 9th of October

Even though I missed a few days, I still got a lot of work done in those 90 minutes. But I was running into a problem. In the past two weeks, I wrote and edited 3 posts. Although they weren’t ready to post. Other tasks needed to be done but required different time windows. Although I never prioritised blog stuff outside of those 90 minutes. So, on one hand, I was already more than halfway into my objective, and on the other, I wasn’t. And so it became clear that doing just the rhythmic philosophy wasn’t going to work. I had to add more time for the blog throughout the day.

Then a theory started to form. Possibly, my ideal deep work schedule wasn’t going to fit inside only one of these philosophies. Probably, I would have to mash two together to maximise my focus. Newport also mentions that different projects might require different philosophies. And now I’m starting to see that more clearly. A 90 minutes block early in the morning doesn’t work for blogging, at least not for me. Other components in the project need to be done at other times. But if I’m working on this project for only those 90 minutes, then it will always be incomplete.

Goals:

Minimum word count: 6 300
Hours of deep work: 630 minutes (10 hours and 30 minutes)
Days working: 7

Week 3 results:

Words wrote: 2213
Hours worked: 330 minutes (5 hours and 30 minutes)
Days worked: 4 (missed Monday, Wednesday, Sunday)

Work done:

• Started drafting “In Review: Illuminae and Gemina”
• Drafting “Project TBR Zero”
• Drafting “Deep Work: Trying the Four Philosophies”
• Making 2 key-chains
• Drafting the next literary experiment

Week 4 – 10th to 16th of October

Despite all the bumps in the road, I couldn’t believe I was in the final week. And it was the worst of them all. Some family stuff got in the way, and the build-up of waking up too early and not sleeping enough for the past three weeks was taking a toll on me. It was the least productive week of the entire experience, and it hurts to see how little I’ve worked.

Goals:

Minimum word count: 6 300
Hours of deep work: 630 minutes (10 hours and 30 minutes)
Days working: 7

Week 4 results:

Words wrote: 1355
Hours worked: 120 minutes (2 hours)
Days worked: 2 (missed Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday)

Work done:

• Revise draft “The Hunger Games Trilogy Review”
• Revise draft “Project TBR Zero”
• Proofreading “In Review: In a Dark Dark Wood”

Conclusion

Doing this experiment for a month had the purpose of reaching the point of creating a habit. I wanted to make this work session part of my morning routine. I saw for myself how much I could accomplish in those 90 minutes, even when some days I didn’t work for that long. But still, for as little as I wrote some days, it was good progress. In the end, I worked on 7 posts, all in different stages of completeness.

I don’t make the blog a priority anymore, so it can easily be pushed aside. Although I started blogging because I enjoy poring out thoughts, writing and editing. I do it for myself. And having a guilty-free period of the day I can use to focus on the blog was great. Waking early was hard, but I grew fond of these sessions every morning. Even before I ate breakfast, I was productive.

I thought the deep work part of creating a fully fleshed-out blog post was just writing it. But I was wrong. Of all the steps I take, from writing, editing, proofreading, taking photos and editing them, to formatting the post on WordPress, more than half require me to be concentrated. And I had no idea. So now I get to look at blog posts differently, separate tasks into deep and shallow work and be able to schedule them in a better way.

Unfortunately, I still missed a lot of days to be able to make this a habit. Although now I know it works. And so, I consider this experiment a mild success. It doesn’t matter if I worked for less than half of the time I was supposed to. If I missed multiple days throughout the week. If I didn’t end with 4 ready to publish posts. These 90 minutes sessions work, and I enjoyed them. I felt productive and good about myself. Now, I need to figure out the best time to schedule them because 6:30 in the morning isn’t the answer.