Four principles to help you focus and be productive

Mondo Education Updated on 2024-01-30

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The success of the job depends on the ability to constantly enter a deep stateDeep work generates deep value。It is impossible to overcome one difficult problem after another without developing the brain to the limit, so how to concentrate?Here are four principles to help you focus and develop a deep work Xi.

Principle 1: Focus on what matters mostThe more you want to do, the less you can accomplish. Having a clear goal can lead to tangible career gains, but it can also lead to a more stable passion. If you want to win the war of attention, don't say "no" to the trivial distractions found in the hodgepodge of information;It's about saying yes to the things that spark your endless desires, and letting those things that spark your endless desires crowd out all things. For example, Peking University's "Wei Shen", why doesn't he care about food, clothing, housing and transportation, because all his thoughts are spent on mathematics, his attention is highly concentrated, and his focus is all on what he thinks is extremely important.

Principle 2: Catch the coincident metricsOnce you've identified the most important goals, you need to measure how successful you are. There are two metrics at this point: lagging and cocity. For example, your goal is to become an expert, and job title or reputation is a lagging indicator that appears too late to change your behavior. The amount of time you spend reading professional books per day is a good synchronization indicator that can give you timely feedback. Coincident metrics guide you to shift your focus to improving behaviors that you can directly control in the short term and have a positive impact on your long-term goals. For individuals who are focused on deep work, it is very easy to determine the corresponding synchronization metrics: focus on the time of the extremely important goals in the upper deep work state.

Principle 3: Prepare an eye-catching scoreboardWhen you're focused on an extremely important goal, it's important to record and track its sync metrics in a public place. The scoreboard can create a sense of urgency that drives you to focus on these metrics, even when other goals grab your attention. In addition, the scoreboard reinforces motivation. Once you notice your success with the coincident metric, you'll be very committed to keeping it that way. Principle 4: Regular accountabilityFor individuals who focus on in-depth work, it is necessary to review their own scoreboard on a weekly basis. If you've been doing well in the past week, you'll want to give yourself some small rewardsIf you've had a bad week in the past week, you need to figure out what caused the poor performance and, most importantly, find ways to ensure a better next week. Constantly adjust your schedule to meet the requirements of the coincident metrics, and you will be able to achieve your long-term goals and achieve excellent results over time. It's also important to be aware that there's a limit to how much time you can spend working in a deep state each day. For novices, an hour or so of highly focused work per day seems to be the limit, while for experts, it can be up to 4 hours, but it basically can't be longer. - Adapted from Carl Newport's Deep Work

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