Double your design productivity

Getting sh*t done (as a designer) part 2

Jul 02, 2023

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KeyShot World San Francisco
Wednesday, July 12, 2023
12:00pm - 7:00pm
The Exploratorium, Pier 15
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We all want to think that we can put our minds towards a big creative project, whether professional or personal, and get it done to our high standards, on-time, and stress free.

That’s the dream.

But it often takes the stress looming deadline to coerce you into focused action. Before you know it, you’re burning the midnight oil and squeezing out your last ounce of creativity to get the damn thing done.

Over the past fifteen years, first as a design student and then a professional designer, I’ve struggled with this constantly. I’ve sought out and absorbed so many different tips and techniques for how to get things done more effectively so I don’t end up in that situation.

Now that I work for myself with the ability to control my work habits and schedule much more than I used to, I’m putting some of these ideas to work.

Today I’ll share two big ideas that have profoundly influenced the way I do things both professionally and personally. If I put them into practice, I can reliably double my productivity.

Note: this is part 2 of a multi-part post series about how I get things done effectively as a designer. You can read part 1 about getting the right things done here.

Part 2: Deep work and energy management

There is one surefire way to get more done in less time.

We all know what it is, but often have a hard time doing it.

The key is to prioritize focus and deep work.

Deep work, a term popularized by scientist and author Cal Newport in the book of the same name, simply means dedicating a significant chunk of distraction-free time solely to making progress on difficult tasks. Research shows that this is best done in 60-90 minute blocks.

Most people know this is how to really get things done, but our modern work environment makes it nearly impossible. With meetings scattered throughout the day, open offices filled with constant chatter, and being incessantly bombarded by emails, messages, and notifications, the average person’s workday is a cloud of shallow, barely focused work.

You ever have one of those days where it feels like you did a lot but not a lot important got done? Yeah.

It’s especially hard to get design work done this way. I’ve found that creative tasks like sketching or thinking through a complex design problem requires a good chunk of warm up time to get into compared to say, plugging numbers into a spreadsheet. Every interruption means having to spend time refocusing and warming up again, which can easily take 15-20 minutes.

To prioritize deep work, what I now try to do is block out 90 minute chunks of focused work time, at least 1 in the morning and 1 in the afternoon, and more if my schedule allows it. I actually schedule them on my calendar so I can’t be invited to meetings during that time.

During these blocks, I put my phone on do not disturb, I quit email and Slack, and I work on one thing that I’ve pre-identified as a priority for the day (so I’m not spending 10-15 minutes of that deep work time figuring out what to do) with as much focus as I can muster.

If you try this, and really treat those blocks as non-negotiable time, you’ll be surprised at how much you can get done. You don’t have to make your entire day deep work (and neither is that productive, either). You can accomplish far more in 3 hours of focused deep work than 8 hours of shallow work, and then you can make time for the other stuff like meetings, emails, etc.

Productivity and performance is a deep rabbit hole (check out the research of Dr. Andrew Huberman if you’re interested in really going deep), but for me getting in those 2+ blocks of focused work time is really the keystone habit. Everything else is just a cherry on top.

Related to deep work is the concept of energy management. Before you roll your eyes, this isn’t some woo-woo energy healing stuff with crystals or anything. It’s simply recognizing that our energy levels and the quality of that energy naturally varies throughout the day.

Time management treats all the minutes of your day as equal. If you can find 30 minutes to shove a meeting in then it goes on the calendar. But when we consider energy management, certain times of day will be better for certain types of tasks due to the natural rhythms of your mind and body.

As much as possible, I want to schedule my deep work chunks when I have the most “get sh*t done” energy, and not when I’m going through natural slumps in my day. Then do emails, low-stress meetings, and other stuff in the lower energy zones.

When looking at my own habits, I tend to have a big spike of energy in the early mornings and in the late afternoons. So I try to start blocks of deep work first thing in my day at around 9AM, and then at least one more around 3-4PM. I tend to have an energy slump after lunch (as a lot of people do), so I try to take most meetings that I can control between 1-3PM.

An important part of energy management is also making time to renew your energy throughout the day. You shouldn’t just start your day with a full battery then run it until you’re empty. Your focus will degrade significantly throughout the day and it will lead to burnout in the long run.

Taking real breaks (away from the computer and not scrolling social media), naps, meditation, and walks are all ways of renewing your energy levels during your day. Making breaks a feature, not a bug, of your ideal workday can have a huge impact to your productivity.

These days I try to take a real lunch break every day (not something I always did), take quick 5-10 minute breaks between switching tasks, and if I can work it in, maybe a 30 minute outdoor walk in the afternoon. Rather than being a waste of time, these gaps in work help me get things done a lot more smoothly when I’m actually focusing on work.

These ideas are so intuitive, you don’t necessarily have to read entire books or listen to professors with PhDs to make them work for you. Yet most designers barely get an hour of deep work time in a day, and are constantly running their energy batteries dry.

It just takes a little bit of conscious consideration and planning and you can double your design productivity or more. Unless you’re at a job where you have no control at all over how you work, I bet you can find a way to incorporate these ideas into your day.

Have you experimented with deep work and energy management? What other ideas have unlocked your creative productivity?

Let me know!

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