[...] Some Notes on Deep Working I loved this idea. I find myself setting aside dedicated time for specific project or initiatives.  By having a plan and diving into deep focused work I do get twice as much done as my multi-tasking distracted self. The only way this works for me though is to carve out time, put myself in a place that is conducive to being focused, and then buckling down and working. Another tip that really helped me is to set a timer. By having a predetermined time limit I can time box the value of that task and create a sense of urgency to finish it in a set of amount of time – this keeps me from being tempted by distractions. [...]

[...] do anything you can to consolidate it into big blocks: 90 minutes of focus is worth immeasurably more than six 15-minute “driblets”. When crises blow up – the territorial battle between [...]

It’s getting INTO the state that’s the clincher, apparently. A solid routine (even a long one) is crucial.

My (other) one question:
Do you think you might write again about student success, or have you changed focus?

Whatever you do, it’s wonderful, however! Your blog and books are so helpful!

Strategy 1: Don’t look for more information – Instead, think it through.

One of the common mistakes knowledge workers make is to give up too soon. Whenever someone stops thinking and wants to consume more information, it implies that he/she has given up.

Trying to find more information is pseudo-work – It looks like your doing something productive but in reality, its wasteful.

For the past week, whenever I got the urge to Google something (e.g. Matlab Code to do something simple, proof of a theorem), I stopped and tried it myself.

You will realize that you have all the answers – it just takes patience and effort.

This habit will (hopefully) sharpen your abilities to think stuff through.

Strategy 2: A Million What Ifs.

A friend of mine, was amazing at this. Whenever he started learning something, he wouldn’t just stop after understanding the basic idea which is presented in the notes.

He would instead come up with various “what if” questions to test whether he truly understood a concept.

Sometimes it is hard to just come up with these scenarios from nowhere. So, I am trying a variation of it by trying to incorporate a similar strategy when I am solving problem sets.

Previously, as soon as I solved a question, my brains would switch off and look at the next question.

With the “What if” Strategy, I attempted to:
Come up with alternative questions
Find a general class of questions which this question belonged to

You can get a deeper understanding of a subject matter with the same material, if you think through it.

Conclusion: The theme behind the 2 strategies mentioned here is to start thinking more.

Great post as always.

I was wandering if you could some insight about the relationship between your deep work philosophy and Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule towards expertise in any given field. More specifically I would like your reflection on the following question”Does one require 10,000 hours of deep work to achieve expertise”?

And I noticed, when the strain would get particularly tough, I would just blurt answers out loud to an empty room. Sometimes it was a single word, other times an entire explanation. But it really did help! It’s like my brain couldn’t hold it all in.