We talk a lot about the concept of deep work here at Asian Efficiency, which is all about maximizing your intensity of focus so that you can produce excellent work and be more productive. But that assumes that you have time to focus on your important projects, which for many people is a luxury they don’t have (especially those in a corporate environment who have to deal with pop-ins from bosses and coworkers).

In this episode, Mike is joined by Curtis McHale, creator of the new focus time video course in the Dojo, our online productivity community, and we talk about how you can create the time to focus on your important projects. We talk about the tools you can use to facilitate focus when it’s time to sit down and do deep work, how you can set up your workspace to facilitate focused work more easily, and how to deal with the expectations of others and carve out focus time for yourself - even if you work in a corporate environment where you don’t have complete control of your time.

Cheat Sheet

A brief intro to Curtis McHale 1:53

The difference between focus time and deep work 3:00

How to get a focus block and how much time to spend on it 9:03

Why passion and purpose are important when trying to get focus time 12:09

Tools you can use to get more focus time 14:01

How to build a workspace for creating focus time 23:08

How to carve out focus time in a corporate environment 29:15

When is focus time bad? 35:03

Links

Get Curtis McHale's book The Art of Focus when it comes out!

The Secret to Making the Most of Your Limited Time w/ Curtis McHale (TPS201)

Increasing Your Productivity By Using Analog Tools w/ Curtis McHale (TPS177)

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Ulysses

Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule

The Cost of Not Paying Attention: How Interruptions Impact Knowledge Worker Productivity

Pomodoro 2.0 w/ Esington Method Founder Rudy Marsh (TPS188)

Focus@Will

Brain.fm

HazeOver

Scrivener

Calm

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less

Great at Work: How Top Performers Work Less and Achieve More

Connect with Curtis McHale

CurtisMcHale.ca

@CurtisMcHale

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