Embracing Boredom

Newport makes it the second rule of Deep Work, and the argument starts from a claim about training: the ability to concentrate intensely improves with practice and declines without it. Someone who reaches for the phone in every queue, lift and pause teaches the mind that boredom never has to be tolerated, and that habit does not switch off when a deep block begins. Newport's main remedy reverses the usual approach. Instead of taking occasional breaks from distraction, such as an internet-free weekend, decide in advance when you will use the internet, and stay off it completely outside those times, at home as well as at work. A short note of when you may next go online turns every urge outside it into a small repetition of resisting. He adds further exercises: working against a deliberately tight deadline in short bursts of intense effort, an approach he associates with Theodore Roosevelt's study habits as a student; and productive meditation, holding one professional problem in mind during a walk or commute. The point is not to suffer boredom for its own sake. Tolerating it is the same muscle that keeps you on one hard problem when an easier stimulus is a tap away.