Ask HN: Increasing Deep Work Tolerance

1. Schedule and discipline are of utmost importance. Only immature people depend on motivation to drive home long-term undertakings.<p>2. Accepting that no more than 4-5 hours of deep focused work of higher strata is possible. One should not aim for more.<p>3. Having a clear work-play&#x2F;family boundary is very important.<p>4. Social media blockades are important. Either do the work or stare at the wall. Do not bring up your phone outside of your slot allocated for social media- even if you are waiting in a queue or riding Uber. Just stare out of the window.<p>5. I have personally found meditation and exercise to be very highly effective.<p>Books that helped:<p>1. <i>Deep Work</i> by Cal Newport<p>2. <i>Pragmatic Thinking and Learning</i> by Andy Hunt<p>3. <i>Atomic Habits</i> by James Clear

There are lots (lots!) of approaches, ones that work&#x2F;don&#x27;t work for different people. It&#x27;s a journey, yours alone! Enjoy the fact that you&#x27;re going to get to know yourself, and accept surprises and celebrate both wins and disappointments.<p>What comes to mind from reading your description that I don&#x27;t see suggested in comments are two points:<p>* very (very) often people, especially younger, have very academic&#x2F;theoretical mental models of themselves that don&#x27;t align with their behavior and make change and action hard. The categories you describe make me think of this. This may be you forcing a framework on your behavior that simply doesn&#x27;t work. Think- is this categorization model the most important thing? What do I really want?<p>* for most people, what they want is behavior change. To have behaved more in a way more of the time, less of another way more of the time. That framing can still be too abstract and intellectual. Behavior is very literal. Very present. To make use of your intellectual ability, try breaking down the more abstract goals to more concrete actions. Keep generating&#x2F;enumerating slices of smaller and smaller behaviors that seem to get you to your goal. Do so in writing, because writing is a way of communicating with yourself that can be suggestive, and motivating. Maybe you will find yourself starting to take some of those small actions, to be doing the small things that to you make up deep work. Good if so- that&#x27;s a start.<p>Best wishes, good luck!

I aim for 3 hours of focused work per day — time to work on my top thing without a single distraction. This is usually split half and half into daytime and nighttime work.<p>I’ll write down what I want to do and why it’s important (often the previous night to make it easier to start the day), then for fun and focus track how long it took to complete.<p>Works for me. I don’t count things like bookkeeping or email into this, as that‘s more like a chore. I don’t count planning into it, because I want to make sure I’m actually doing things and not only thinking about them.<p>As long as I get the minimum focused hours, I can then relax guilt-free.

One idea for getting stuck in consumption mode - Set a timer for 5 minutes when you go to do a search.<p>I&#x27;m have been using RescueTime[1] to rebuild my deep focus. I think it can help for two reasons:<p>1. It blocks websites, which might help with the consumption mode 2. It automatically tracks deep work, so I can see daily and week over week improvement.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rescuetime.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rescuetime.com</a>

I use checkboxes with things I hope to accomplish today. I start that list before I go to sleep the night prior and continue to fill it out in the am if there’s any updates. Then I try to check each of them off. I’m bad at keeping to a schedule but it gives me a huge dopamine rush to check off each box as I complete items.

My suggestion is a mindset, instead of a framework. Learn to identify when you feel the pull of distraction and resist it. This especially happens when you’re faced with doing something difficult or boring.

Music works well for me sometimes. If I get into the zone with code or writing then a stream of instrumental music (no lyrics or I get distracted) can turn minutes into hours and the whole day flies by.