Maja Paleka on Deep Work

What are the conditions that set you up for your best deep work?

“I have been lucky that I have always been able to fall into a state of deep work somewhat easily.  I do find as I am getting older ( or possibly due to the distraction of modern work) this is slightly tougher, but in the right conditions I can still make it happen.  The first thing is the time of day - I find I fall into deep work easiest in the evenings after 8PM, so I try to carve time out then. But if I need to get things done earlier than that, then locking myself in my office, turning off notifications is a good start, and then just working through the first 20 minutes of discomfort while my mind settles in seems to work.  Recently I have been also experimenting with listening to binaural beats (so awesome) and lighting always the same scented candle as a cue to my brain and it really seems to help.”

Maja Paleka
melo co-founder, she/her, nomad, a proud nerd and people lover :-)

At melo, we are currently working on reducing and rethinking the mental load of families.  We know the current model where one person, usually women or those in traditionally female coded roles, seem to carry the lion share of the mental load does not work for anyone.  So we are building a tool and a program to first reduce that load, and second help families move from that model to working better as a team.