Dr. Cal Newport

I'm surrounded by books that I've really carefully curated what's where, each shelf, like what type of book it has on it.

So I can look different ways for different inspirations.

I got a fireplace.

So I can just turn on a fire if I need it.

I'll bring my laptop in there to write if I'm gonna write on a computer.

And my phone doesn't come in there.

Yeah, you don't look at a phone in that room.

And it just helps me.

It's a ritual, right?

If I'm in there,

I'm thinking, I'm creating with the sort of same patterns of cogitation that we would have been using for hundreds of years when people have been thinking professionally.

If I want to be near a printer and I want to go onto a web browser and pay my taxes or whatever, I have a different place for that.

That's interesting, actually, that there's a neurological explanation.

When I use the fire is actually when I read.

So I have chairs by the fire, but I think for exactly this reason.

Because when I'm reading, I'm looking to spark ideas.

Like, okay, what's my takeaway from this?

What's the connection you're making between this thing you're reading here and this idea over there?

That type of connection making is a lot of my brainstorming.

And I read by the fire when the weather allows it.