Our brains are just not good at multi-tasking. It increases our stress levels, overstimulates our brain, and prevents us from truly deep learning.
So what do we need to do to be smarter, more efficient, and more productive? — Learn to focus.
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 then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.
Trying to stay focused in the Age of Distraction requires a considerable amount of effort, but that doesn’t mean we stop trying.
Deep work is performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that pushes your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill and are hard to replicate.
Deep work requires intensely focusing on a single high priority task for a significant period of time.
Attention is conscientiousness. It’s also time management and follow-through. Focus is the new I.Q., and we can get better at it with practice. How much time do you spend focusing on the very things you want to do? How long can you sit still doing the one thing?
Summing-up: The key to developing a deep work habit is to add routines and rituals to your working life which involve scheduling time and committing to deep work. Failure to schedule and prioritise deep work allows our autopilot to take charge and inevitably low value, trivial work will creep in
Exactly. Completely agree.
The problem is the committing to the schedule – keeping the trivial (and urgent but not important) work at bay.