The pianist Glenn Gould once proposed a mathematical formula for this cycle, telling a journalist: I’ve always had a sort of intuition that for every hour you spend with other human beings you need X...
The implication of these findings is clear. In work (and especially knowledge work), to increase the time you spend in a state of depth is to leverage the complex machinery of the human brain in a way...
The goal of productive meditation is to take a period in which you’re occupied physically but not mentally—walking, jogging, driving, showering—and focus your attention on a single well-defined profes...
The average Facebook user, by contrast, spends around 350 minutes per week on this company’s services
The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and the...
The Principle of Least Resistance, protected from scrutiny by the metric black hole, supports work cultures that save us from the short-term discomfort of concentration and planning, at the expense of...
The Law of Financial Viability When deciding whether to follow an appealing pursuit that will introduce more control into your work life, seek evidence of whether people are willing to pay for it. If...
The Deep Work Hypothesis: The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cul...
The 4DX framework is based on the fundamental premise that execution is more difficult than strategizing.
Spend enough time in a state of frenetic shallowness and you permanently reduce your capacity to perform deep work.
Shallow Work: Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate
Self-Determination Theory (SDT), which is arguably the best understanding science currently has for why some pursuits get our engines running while others leave us cold.8 SDT tells us that motivation,...
Se tan bueno que no puedan ignorarte.
Professorial E-mail Sorting: Do not reply to an e-mail message if any of the following applies: It’s ambiguous or otherwise makes it hard for you to generate a reasonable response. It’s not a question...
Pardis Sabeti thought small by focusing patiently for years on a narrow niche (the genetics of diseases in Africa), but then acting big once she acquired enough capital to identify a mission (using co...
My professional situation now couldn’t be more perfect, Scott reports. I chose to pursue the career I knew in my heart I was passionate about: politics…. I love my office, my friends… even my boss. Th...
My Research Bible Routine At some point during my quest, I started what I came to call my research bible, which is, in reality, a document I keep on my computer. Here’s the routine: Once a week I requ...
Missions are hard. By this point in my quest, however, I had become comfortable with hard, and I hope that if you’ve made it this far in the book, you have gained this comfort as well. Hardness scares...
Let’s begin with the first ability. To start, we must remember that we’ve been spoiled by the intuitive and drop-dead-simple user experience of many consumer-facing technologies, like Twitter and the...
Laura also connects efforts to be a conscientious consumer with issues relating to social justice, which also play a big role in the Mennonite Church.