The Casualties of Doing Deep Work
Except maybe it's really not that fatal after all . . .
I’m really enjoying Kristopher “KC” Carter’s newsletter Chill & Flow. In this recent article, he talks about the danger of giving in to the “Speedy Rabbit” voice that lives in side all of us, which he describes as “ . . . our primal fear to ‘move fast or die.’"
The article describes three false beliefs that this inner voice tells us. One of the three was “shipping our best work will have casualties.” Meaning that our Speedy Rabbit voice convinces us that taking the time to do the deep work involved in creating things means that we’re missing out on other opportunities like connecting with new clients, posting on social media to attract new people to our business, etc. etc.
His point is that putting in the time to create things that are aligned with your goals and feel meaningful is always worth it in the end, even when they don’t seem as urgent as the notifications pinging us or emails flying into our inbox. Here’s how he explains it (permission below is a reference to concepts in his book, Permission to Glow):
Staying in IT— our most crucial, highest contribution takes a warrior mentality. Speedy Rabbit will scream at you for being a lazy ass, or letting everyone die on your watch. That is just anxiety, mixed with the fear of (Permission 3) "glowing in the dark."
Staying in it is the devotion it takes to build your dream. The courage to see a marriage through, to deliver a manuscript, to step out on larger stages and share your glow.
Every time we stay committed to working in Stephen Covey's Quadrant II (Important but *not* Urgent), we produce our best work. We glow in the dark.
I love all this. It’s really great stuff—- but I also originally misread his point. I initially read “shipping our best work will have casualties” not as a falsehood, but as something that was true (likely I got distracted and forgot I was reading a list of false beliefs, talk about not being in IT).
To be honest, when I read it the wrong way, I was like YES! SO TRUE! There are always casualties when I do deep work. When I lean into preparing for the classes I teach or workshops I’m giving, I don’t answer emails or process those student applications to our programs. When I’m working on a writing project, I neglect my personal inbox or forget to reply to texts. It’s also why I have a hard time consistently sharing my work on social media (though more likely that’s because of the lull of the infinite scroll— wait I came here to do something, what was it again?)
All that to say, it feels like I’m always letting something slide to work on something else. And I don’t like it. I think the statement I read wrong in KC’s article resonated so much because of how accurate the word “casualty” felt. It feels pretty terrible not to respond to emails quickly when I know people are waiting for answers. I don’t mean to let long expanses lapse between messages with people I genuinely care about. Neglecting these things does feel really, really bad.
Except, am I actually neglecting them?
Sure, it feels that way. But is it actually what I’m doing, or is that my inner “Speedy Rabbit” talking? Because, it’s not that I don’t ever reply to emails or text messages. I will eventually process those applications or do any number of other administrative tasks associated with my work. I just don’t do these things quickly when I’m trying to focus deeply on other projects.
We have a tendency to confuse the speed with which we do something with how good we are at it. Our fast-moving, always at your fingertips world makes us think that everything should be turned around within no more than 24 hours and missing that mark means we’re just no good at all. But I think to thrive in this world of infinite inputs, we are going to have to change our relationship with getting it all done and acknowledge that we simply never will. If we accept that as truth, then the key becomes not to sacrifice the big, meaningful projects for the ever-present, always incoming ones.
To that end, embracing the idea that “shipping our best work will have casualties” as a FALSE belief hinges on one word— casualties. Yes, things don’t get done. Sometimes that means they don’t get done in the timeframe others would prefer and sometimes they flat out won’t get done at all. But we have to stop thinking of this in such a fatalistic way. These aren’t casualties or failures. They are instead things that we set aside to tend to “our most crucial, highest contribution.”
When we give into the negative terminology here, we’re assuming some sort of defeat, instead of trusting our innate ability to discern that which is most meaningful and set about using our precious time and energy toward it. It isn’t easy. There’s a lot of false urgency out there. But it’s time we accept that prioritizing things that align with how you want to show up in the world does not leave a wake of destruction in its path.
Quite the opposite- it’s how meaningful work gets done.
Beautiful Thing of the Week
Just one little something I found inspiring this week (read last week’s longer list of tiny, lovely things here):
🍩 I call this Signs of Life: Still Life on a Tuesday Afternoon in the Office. I’m back on campus more this semester than I have been since 2020. This is the collection that had formed on my desk by mid-afternoon: my morning coffee cup, my water bottle, a couple of oranges from lunch, and a “hey there’s coffee and donuts in this office” score on my walk back from a meeting in the Student Commons. It’s been fun to remember the perks of working on a college campus (which are way more than donuts… but there are often donuts).
Do you struggle with feeling bad about the list of “undone things” that piles up while you’re deep at work on big projects? Any tricks for combating those fatalistic inner voices? I’d love to hear about it!