How do you deep work?

I procrastinate on the work for 5 hours, then panic and get hyperfocused. It's not a good way to do things, but it's how I do it.

Not gonna be a popular response but few months ago I was really angry at myself because of two diverging realities

1. I think I am a fairly good developer, when I am in a flow state, I can accomplish a huge amount of work in 3-4 hours.

2. I am very rarely in a flow state.

I am always doing something else, watching some videos, reading books or Feedly, hoping around, etc.

Now comes the controversial part, recently I started using Ritalin. About 5 doses each week. There will probably be consequences (I am not sure), but it's magic. I reach a flow state in under 20 minutes and stay this way for 4h or so.

I decided to change my schedule and only work 4h/day because I constantly do a good amount of work.

Get important work. We humans tend to avoid fake work.

Deep work is a side effect of building strong internal self-discipline. There is a lot of useless advice on how to get into flow but these do not work because people lack discipline. With strong discipline, you can do deep work on tasks that you do no like or want to do in first place.

Start with waking up on same hour every day, after few weeks add eating healthy breakfast. After a month or two add going to sleep on specific time, then add minimum exercise etc. Gradually, you will build self disciple that would work across everything you do, including work.

Not on the company dime is by far the most effective way I’ve found.

I block out 3 hour chunks of time without any interruptions and work deeply on my personal projects.

During my day job, incessant meetings, status updates, slack and stand ups ensure I don’t do much (if any) deep work.

Cannabis.

Allows me to focus on tasks and really hit flow like I can't when in a "normal" state of mind. I'm not alone in this!

I've considered trying Adderall but who wants to get addicted to amphetamines?

I stay awake all night, then work at the morning next day. My brain is too tired to refuse to work at that point.

I do make sure to eat really well so I don't get tired physically.

Get a problem in my head, and then go do something else. Deep autopilot work.

Time block