Cal Newport

and cognitive fitness.

We need something that is like a brain gym.

Well, I've been thinking about this recently.

I've been thinking about more intense cognitive fitness style activities I've been doing in my own life that might be the mental equivalent of going to the gym.

And I have two techniques here that I want to share.

I think it's the first time I've talked about either.

So this is ratcheting up our intensity here.

All right, the first technique I call immersive thinking.

and here's how it works.

You build out a mini excursion, something that might take anywhere between one to four hours.

It is designed to leverage novel environments to help push your brain temporarily into a higher gear than you would normally be.

Just like going to a gym,

You're going to lift much heavier weights than you're going to sort of come across in your everyday life.

Immersive thinking is about trying to leverage novel environments to push your brain to a new level of thinking that you want to normally do in everyday life and therefore get both comfort with thinking and growth of thinking ability.

Now, there's three elements for an immersive speaking thinking rather mini excursion to actually work.

Element one, you need an environment that's novel and thought-provoking, so a place that you associate with contemplation and that you don't associate with other things in your life.

That's why your kitchen doesn't work or the conference room at your office doesn't work.

You have too many other associations with that that will be distracting.

The second element of making this idea work, have a warm-up routine.

Now, just like at the gym, you need to do a warmup routine before you start lifting those heavy weights.