Our ideas, too, will disappoint us if we don’t give them the right environment to develop in. They’ll be shallow, derivative, dull, repetitive, or take too long to show up. Or they’ll just not show up at all. We must find the perfect glass jar and lid for them to appear in.

What is that perfect glass jar, though? Our ideas appear primarily in one s... See more

Every time you respond to a distraction — a new email in your inbox, a notification on your phone, a red badge on an app — you are training your mind to value the new at the expense of the important.

As busy professionals we all collect a very large number of near-term responsibilities and tasks. In a busy office we tend to focus first on immediate emergencies. Next, we focus on urgent things due soon, and then on slightly less urgent things that are due a little farther out, and so on. In the midst of that are meetings, interruptions, and dive

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use to assuage your urge toward distraction, and in the case of the most addictive forms of technology, that’s surely a sensible idea. But they don’t address the urge itself. Even if you quit Facebook, or ban yourself from social media during the workday, or exile yourself to a cabin in the mountains, you’ll probably still find it unpleasantly cons

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