Divorce combined with career transition makes for major stress, but also presents an exciting opportunity to pursue your professional destiny. As you seek a newly focused and more fulfilling career path, heed the wisdom of Cal Newport. In Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Newport argues that professionals perform best when they focus primarily on deep work, which requires greater focus, creativity, and commitment. According to Newport, shallow work (such as endlessly checking email) only distracts ambitious individuals from the focused tasks that truly matter.
The Role of Distraction
Constant connection may be the norm these days, but it prevents the elite production that today’s knowledge workers desire. Managers continue to promote quantity over quality, so employees continue to look busy and accomplish little. As a divorcee, you may be equally guilty of this in your personal life. If you shift your focus, however, you can implement deep work in all aspects of your existence, including your job, hobbies, and professional life.
Embracing Boredom
Newport takes issue with the boredom-averse nature of today’s society. He believes that boredom plays a critical role in professional and personal development. As a newly-divorced professional, you may suffer listlessness every time you return to an empty home, but if you take any stock in Newport’s creed, you boast a wonderful gift: the ability to bypass unimportant distractions and throw yourself into deep work.
Planning Your Day
As a spouse, your daily plans revolved around work, your significant other, and occasionally, hobbies or other personal priorities. You’ve since eliminated a major time sink from your day, but you may feel tempted to fill the void with shallow work. Cut back on social media accounts and limit email answering time to ensure full focus during the workday. This may reduce the amount of work brought home, thereby freeing you up for personal development off the clock.
Researchers believe it takes 10,000 hours of concentrated commitment to develop expertise in any given skill. How many hours do you spend on the things that matter? Embrace this post-divorce opportunity to commit yourself to your personal and professional passions.
Conclusion
The less you have to worry about confusing legal concerns, the more you can focus on professional pursuits. Leave the legal complications to the talented team at DiPietro Law Group.
