Deep work is way more powerful than most people understand.

I would compensate for losing the grant by increasing the rate and impressiveness of my publications—allowing them to declare on my behalf that I actually did know what I was doing, even if this one particular grant application didn’t go my way.

In addition to my rule about not working at night, I started to take extended lunch breaks in the middle of the day to go for a run and then eat lunch back at my apartment.

This tip can be uncomfortable at first because it will cause you to break a key convention currently surrounding e-mail: Replies are assumed, regardless of the relevance or appropriateness of the message.

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 or proposal that interests you. Nothing really good would happen if you did respond and nothing really bad would happen if you didn’t.

Tip #3: Don’t Respond

“closes the loop” with respect to the project at hand.

Process-Centric Response to E-mail #1: “I’d love to grab coffee. Let’s meet at the Starbucks on campus. Below I listed two days next week when I’m free. For each day, I listed three times. If any of those day and time combinations work for you, let me know. I’ll consider your reply confirmation for the meeting. If none of those date and time

What is the project represented by this message, and what is the most efficient (in terms of messages generated) process for bringing this project to a successful conclusion?