Speaker 1: We live in the age of information. Thousands of blogs and articles are produced every single day, and over 500 hours are uploaded to YouTube each minute. But even though knowledge is more abundant than ever, people are finding it harder to learn or accomplish anything because more information comes with more distraction. But there is a skill we can train that allows us to take advantage of the information ocean without getting consumed. Cal Newport, professor at Georgetown University and prolific author, came up with the idea of deep work. He believes we're in the midst of a digital renaissance where anyone has the potential to make a lasting impact. Brilliant ideas are being produced and shared all across the Internet. But if we're chronically distracted, the ideas are meaningless if we can't act on them. In order to take advantage of the digital renaissance, Cal Newport states we must possess two qualities. The ability to quickly acquire skills and quickly produce quality work. The more skills that are toolboxed, the more creatively we can solve problems. And if the way we do that is quick and of high quality, we'll truly separate ourselves from the pack. Those who can deliver the most value are awarded accordingly in the digital economy. Sounds easy in theory, right? But in practice, it requires tremendous effort to build skills unless we follow a set of rules. We've already made several videos on the science of skill acquisition. If you haven't seen those, then definitely check those out first. But as Cal Newport points out, acquiring skills alone is not enough. It doesn't matter how good we are at programming or sales. If we don't use it because we can't concentrate or focus, that knowledge is meaningless. This is why deep work is so powerful. Every top student or successful entrepreneur can tap into the skill of deep work to accomplish more in less time. Deep work is a super skill. It's something that, once we train, will seemingly improve every area of our life. So Cal Newport identified that there are four rules for deep work, but I prefer to simplify it to three because three is a magic number. Rule number one, focus on only one task at a time and do it for as long as possible. For most people, myself included, multitasking is the worst thing you can do for productivity. Cal Newport explains this as the concept of attention residue. Logically, we think that multitasking means we can simultaneously work on two things at 50% capacity. But as you've probably attempted yourself, this is not true. Because everything we work on has an activation energy. It takes time to get into the mindset, warm up, and get into flow. When we switch between tasks, we pause the previous task and have to get over another activation hump. But once we return to the previous task, it's not like a video game where we can just unpause and keep going where we were. We have to reorient ourselves, overcome the activation energy again, and get into the mindset and headspace where we left off. And as you can imagine, the more tasks we switch between, the more our focus is dispersed. We end up wasting all of our energy and time overcoming these activation humps that we never focus long enough to produce quality work. That's the reality of task switching. The quality of all tasks suffers along with our productivity. My favorite way to focus on single tasking is to incorporate time pressure. A lot of people love using Pomodoro, blocking out 25 to 50 minutes, devoted to only one task and then taking a five minute break and then repeating that process. I mean, I think Pomodoro is cool. If you're new to deep work, it's a great starting point. It got me through a lot of hard study days in college and in medical school. But as I trained and improved the skill of deep work, I realized several limitations. I can now easily work for longer than 25 or even 50 minutes, so I don't need to take a break as often. I actually prefer not to, to prevent having to overcome that activation energy again. So in the past year or so, I switched to using a stopwatch instead, a more advanced approach, which we'll call Flomodoro. Once we can easily work past 50 minutes, we need to know how long we can go before the brain fog starts to settle in. We still feel that pressure from time, but instead of it being an endurance test against a timer, it's an endurance test against ourself. Make it a challenge. How long can you go for? Rule number two is to tolerate boredom. What our mind hates more than anything else are negative emotions. I like to think of the mind like a bratty child. When it feels bored, it throws a tantrum and does anything it can to escape that feeling, which is why when boredom strikes, we automatically grab our phone or daydream or complain and let the entire world know. But unfortunately, that inner brat in all of us is just getting worse. Because of the explosion of instant gratification at our fingertips, it's a lot more difficult to find enjoyment doing simple things, things that objectively are incredibly satisfying. Like when was the last time you had a meal by yourself without watching Netflix or TikToks? When was the last time you went to the bathroom without your phone? Embracing boredom means we have to stop reaching for quick dopamine. If you can quit social media altogether, more power to you. But personally, I don't think quitting is necessary. I think it's better to redefine our relationship with social media and set stronger boundaries. We have to treat our mind the same way a parent would their fussy child. We need to resist giving in to the impulses and demands of our mind. And over time, our mind will realize that we aren't messing around. It'll fall in line. Raise the bar for tolerating boredom. At first, it'll be tough. But once we're at a new baseline, it will just feel normal. And then we can keep pushing that bar until we're in complete control. I'm not going to go too much more detail about how to desensitize our brain from instant gratification, but I made a very comprehensive video discussing my protocol for it, which you can check out right here. And rule number three is drain the shallows. We should eliminate all the menial work, errands or side projects we use to productively procrastinate with because our mind is also very clever. If throwing a tantrum doesn't work, it'll try a ninja jujutsu move to avoid the deep work by convincing us to engage in shallow work. You know, I can't even count how many times I've thought, oh, geez, it's too hard to focus on studying right now. I might as well just go to the gym instead or clean my bathroom for the fifth time today or meal prep for next month. We find ways to keep busy. But let's be real and call it what it is. There are excuses for not doing the important work that we need to do. One of the most powerful strategies I've implemented to overcome the productive procrastination trap is to prioritize and plan before I begin my day. It's not sexy at all. I'm sorry I don't have a secret hack or anything, but it really is as simple as planning. Actually, think about it. The idea of searching for an easier alternative is your mind trying to convince you to productively procrastinate. It's trying to play you to not focus on building your business or studying because first you need to clean your desk and read five more books to learn more about it. Draining the shallows comes down to planning out ahead of time. What are the most important things to work on that will move me towards my goals? I've found it's important for me to prioritize and plan the night before when I'm detached from my work, because my judgment will be clouded by negative emotions that I might feel while I'm working, right? It's so much more helpful to go into deep work with priorities and tensions planned out than it is to come up with them on the spot when we're in the trenches and emotionally compromised. I won't dive too deep into how I manage my time and select the most important things to work on, but definitely check out this video up here for the complete guide. So keep these three rules in mind for building the skill of deep work. Since I've been intentionally training it, I've noticed huge improvements in my productivity, like stuff that once took me hours or even days to complete. I realized I could finish it in a couple hours. I don't get sucked into the void of information overload or distraction. Deep work is the key to achieving more and less time. And as Cal Newport puts it, leveling up in the digital renaissance. But I also want to mention that deep work has limitations, because regardless of how locked in and distraction free we are, our brain has a breaking point for the sake of your mental health and for the sake of your personal productivity. Don't forget to recharge your battery. We can't stay in deep work 16 hours a day after day and expect our performance to remain sharp. There's not tangible evidence to show for it. But Cal Newport and others suggest we can achieve four hours of deep work a day. Of course, we can work for longer, but that's the point when our quality begins to noticeably change. So don't skimp out on the necessities like sleep, for example, which on the flip side has a ton of research and science behind it. And if you want to learn more about how to optimize your sleep for personal productivity, then keep this video right over here.