All right, Sarah says, "How can schools implement a deep work approach to learning?" All right, so let's think elementary, high school level, so like secondary elementary school level, at that level of education, can we be doing things to prepare students for cognitive work and in particular deep work type efforts?

I think so. I think there's at least three things that we could specifically integrate into curriculums. One is just the mental model, teaching the students the mental model that talks about concentration as a skill that is A, trainable, it's like running, the more you train the faster you can do it, and B, incredibly valuable.

This is what allows, okay great, Andrew Wiles' law of Fermat's last theorem, sure, but it's also what allows your favorite musician or songwriter to do something really innovative with the music or to learn the instrument that they then play in a way that is so impressive, what allows this athlete to be so great, that allows this writer to write this book that you love or that allows this public thinker to really shape the public conversation.

You've got to teach them this mental model, concentration, especially in today's knowledge style economy, knowledge style economy of ideas as well as actual economic output, concentration, deep thinking, careful thinking, it's everything. It's like being good with the sword in ancient Sparta and it's something that has to be trained.

Just giving them that model, very important. Two, practice this in the classroom. Now we're going to sit here and do this, it's going to be 20 minutes and then you know what, by October we're going to do 30 minute sessions and by November we're going to do 40 minute sessions just working on whatever, these hard visualization problems or math problems.

We're going to do writing prompts, you just write, write, write and don't let your concentration wander. But then when it's over, everyone can jump up and run around and get all their wiggles out and then we're going to sit down and do it again. You can actually practice concentration, do interval training on concentration in the classroom.

A, this will make them better at concentrating. B, it reinforces that aspect of the mental model I referenced that concentration can be trained. Let your students see they get better at it. Let them see they get better at it. That's more critical than how good you make them, knowing that they can always get better at it.

And then three, I would have detailed notes for parents about how homework should go and about this mental model and how homework is an aspect for them to practice sustained and focused concentration at home and how they should set up homework. And it should be these set times they know when it's going to be, and it should be disconnected and there should be no phone there.

And you should say your students will 100%, I will put $1,000 on the table wagering that the first thing your student will say to you is I need the computer, I need internet to do research and there's Google Classroom has my notes in it. Call BS on that. Great.

Let's sit down at the computer together and get everything you need and then you can go do the work with it. Don't let them use that. Or here's the other one you will see, and I'll bet a lot of money on this because I've been doing this for a while.

I need my phone because I have to text my group mates if I have questions. So you get detailed notes from teachers to say, call BS. Homework should be a time for them to practice it. By the way, there is an extra mental health benefit to making work at home, especially for high school age students or junior high age students with pretty intense homework.

If you actually work structured without distraction, the amount of time it takes to get that work done well cuts by a factor of two or three. That's not nothing. If three hours that goes kind of late into the night gets replaced with one hour done right before dinner, it is a much smaller footprint that homework is a much smaller footprint on the student schedule.

So yes, I think we should be training deep work. There are some ideas off the top of my head.