Deep focus & micro habits

Huberman blows past simplistic explanations and dissects the complex neurochemistry behind learning. 

Huberman notes that to attain significant brain rewiring requires that you induce a sense of “urgency” that leads to the release of norepinephrine. This hormone, however, will make you feel “agitated,” like you need to get up and go do something. It’s here that you must apply intense focus to fight that urge, ultimately leading to the release of acetylcholine, the neurotransmitter that in combination with the norepinephrine can induce brain growth.

https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2020/09/29/on-the-neurochemistry-of-deep-work/ 

"Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World" by Cal Newport - BOOK SUMMARY 

Why you should quit social media - His Argument by Cal Newport in June 2016

The way that technologist Jaron Lanier puts it is that these social media companies offer you shiny treats in exchange for minutes of your attention and bites of your personal data, which can then be packaged up and sold.  So to say that you don't use social media should not be a large social stance, it's just rejecting one form of entertainment for others. Social media is not a fundamental technology. It leverages some fundamental technologies, but it's better understood as this - it's a source of entertainment, it's an entertainment product. 

In a competitive 21st century economy, what the market values is the ability to produce things that are rare and are valuable. What the market dismisses, for the most part, are activities that are easy to replicate and produce a small amount of value.  Social media use is the epitome of an easy to replicate activity that doesn't produce a lot of value; it's something that any six-year-old with a smartphone can do. By definition, the market is not going to give a lot of value to those behaviors. It's instead going to reward the deep, concentrated work required to build real skills and to apply those skills to produce things - like a craftsman - that are rare and that are valuable. 

ATOMIC HABITS: AN EASY & PROVEN WAY TO BUILD GOOD HABITS & BREAK BAD ONES by James Clear

"When you hear about big successes in the world, what you don't see is years of effort that went into them because it's not one BIG transformation but a series of small consistent improvements".