Cultivating Depth and Stillness in Research

I might not be able to spend two full weeks lying on a picnic table in my backyard, but there’s a key insight lurking in that story about the value of slowing down to prepare to tackle a hard project. If we can get over our frustration that these traditional knowledge workers enjoyed privileges that we don’t have access to, we might find in their e

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Here are some other techniques people use to access and maintain the zone:

• Introducing a long delay between when you do the work and when it is shown to the world. Annie Ernaux writes about this in A Simple Passion, a memoir about how she becomes obsessed in a banal way with a man who is having an affair with her—the thought that others will read th

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1. Synthesize new ideas constantly. Never read passively. Annotate, model, think, and synthesize while you read, even when you’re reading what you conceive to be introductory stuff. That way, you will always aim towards understanding things at a resolution fine enough for you to be creative.

8. As you develop skills, write up best-practices protocol... See more