Pure Focus

I have made a very useful discovery as of late. In Newport's book Deep Work, he says the first step to achieving optimal productivity is to cut off all distractions. There were examples of great literary writers and inventors who secluded themselves to lake houses and isolated towers where they were able to achieve greatness.

    In particular, there was an example of an average guy (Jim?) who majored in finance and got a goon desk job. The tasks he was assigned was completely mindless -filling in excel sheets with numbers or something. Jim hated his job and wanted to switch to computer programming, but he had 0 background in coding. At first, he tried studying but always got distracted with email, phone notifications, instagram, walking around, laying down, etc. Thus, he decided that everyday he would lock himself in a room for 4hrs with nothing but a textbook and some paper. Within 4 months, not only was Jim a coding beasts (out coding PhD's and people with years of experience), but his focus improved tremendously (4hr focus sessions became a walk in the park). During that time, he had gone through multiple books on the subject as well. Gone are all the bad habits of quick dopamine.

    Likewise, I discovered the Gulag rooms on campus. A tiny cell with a desk and whitewalls. No phone, no music, no distractions. Pure focus.