The consistency of a rhythmic approach creates a daily deep work habit, which over time becomes stronger and requires less willpower. The rhythmic approach is also great for making progress on big projects that require weeks or months to finish. A lengthy project can be demotivating and lead to procrastination, especially if the project does not

When Roediger studied elite memory athletes like Kilov, he found that the biggest difference was not a direct measure of memory, but rather attentional control. In other words, memory training is correlated with (and may increase a person's ability in) focus and concentration, which can be applied to school or work.

executives, are unique. The value of a CEO lies in the person's experience, judgment, vision and instinct to guide the countless decisions that a company must make every day. Spending hours thinking deeply about a single problem is a waste of that value. It would be better to hire smart people to think deeply about the problem and present possible

Individuals work in these chambers for 90 minutes at a time, followed by a 90-minute break. This three-hour cycle is repeated two or three times each day.

Recall the definition of shallow work: "Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend not to create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate."

So Newport create a sender filter on his website as follows: "If you have an offer, opportunity, or introduction that might make my life more interesting, e-mail me at interesting@calnewport.com. For the reasons stated above, I'll only respond to those proposals that are a good match for my schedule and interests." Newport's sender filter does two

When either of these happens, simply revise the schedule for the rest of your day. It's not uncommon to revise the schedule six or eight times in a given day. The point is not to keep a perfect schedule, but rather to develop awareness of how long tasks truly take, how much of your day is spent on shallow versus deep work, and how your day evolves

By his third year as a professor, Newport continued to find ways to improve his deep work practice. He also started to write the 70,000 word manuscript for Deep Work itself. Newport pushed himself to an extreme, ruthlessly turning down any non-essential commitments, and finding isolated places to work free of interruption. He used productive

Productive meditation has 5 steps: Choose the activity during which you will productively meditate Identify the "next step" of a work problem that needs solving Memorize any necessary information Solve problem while doing the activity (this is the core of productive meditation) Review and consolidate your solution Productive meditation can boost