Cal Newport

So that's interesting what you're doing there, Evan.

Other things you can do to actively strengthen your concentration muscles.

The three things I talk about a lot on this show is read, write, self-reflect, right?

Reading has a unique value to your brain because it's not just practicing using your brain.

It actually rewires your brain in a way that you can make more areas of your brain work together to produce smarter thoughts.

So reading literally makes you smarter, not just from the content, but by the way it rewires your brain.

Writing is where you reverse those circuits and actually produce original thoughts using them.

You get better at actually focusing these circuits to producing new things of value in the world.

So care about writing.

Don't automate it with AI.

Hard is not bad.

Strain is not bad.

It's like lifting a weight.

You want the burn.

You want to feel the burn of a blank page.

And self-reflection is going for a walk and thinking about something in your head without a phone.

Can I maintain my mind's eye on an internal subject like myself, some problem I'm having, something I'm trying to figure out, and make progress on it with just internal dialogue?

Those three things, reading, writing, self-reflections, I think are the primary activities to strengthen your cognitive fitness, right?

It's like what would be in the athletic context like doing cardio and strength training and stretching.

I think it's roughly that equivalent.