I conducted the ‘Deep Work Workshop’ for three main reasons.
1) I was looking for a good work productivity workshop that will help me work towards focused work. I found none. I decided to conduct one myself.
2) I’m no expert in productivity. So, what’s the best thing to do? Get together a passionate group of people who have the same desire as you in improving work productivity.
3) To use this workshop as a goal to read important books. In the last one week alone, I was able to cover four important books that I have always wanted to read but never got around to it.
DEEP WORK: Focused Success in a Distracted World. By Hal Elrod.
THE ONE THING: The Surprising Simple Truths Behind Extraordinary Results. By Gary Keller
THE MORNING MIRACLE: The 6 Habits That Will Transform Your Life Before 8AM.
GETTING THINGS DONE: The Art of Stress Free Productivity. By David Allen.
I covered all these books in the form of podcasts, audio books, book summaries and YouTube videos. And importantly took notes of key points that I found useful.
Now, its very easy for me to put all these points into a presentation and take a 3 hour lecture. I’ve been a professor for over a decade and this would come naturally. However, it would not have been productive. When reading all these books, I realized a very surprising truth. Almost all the authors’s suggestions for productivity are common sense. Its something that most of us already know. So, instead of treating this workshop like a lecture or seminar, I made this into a free-wheeling unconference powered by discussions. All the participants would collaboratively list down all the ideas for productivity. Trust me, we covered so many ideas and techniques that it would rival any book.
I did have a light structure in place for the workshop to make sure that we covered the important areas but the session was flexible enough to cover the areas that the participants found useful.
Three hours flew by so quickly. I loved how everyone were very involved. Everyone in the hall was a teacher where they taught what was important for them. We touched on our failures. We touched on the many distractions that plague us. We touched on the benefits that we will all get if we were very productive. We agreed on the things that we intend to correct going forward. Loved the collaborative learning.
The key thing now though is Execution.It all boils down to this. Putting things into action what we learned is critical.
I intend to play the role of the catalyst and organize more such ‘Learning and Sharing Workshops’. If you are interested in attending these, do shoot me an email at Kiruba@Kiruba.com.
