Some tasks are just hard. There’s no substitute for deep work.

Everybody has a few daily To-Do’s that could be almost be knocked out while sleeping. These are the tasks that you need podcasts to get through—if anything, they’re hard to get yourself to do because they’re not especially interesting.

At the same time, there are some tasks that are just difficult. You can’t multitask your way to finishing them. You need to devote serious time and mental effort to knocking them out of the park.

Here are a few recommendations to cultivate deep work:

• Schedule deep work: Plan deep work into your schedule at a similar time every day, probably in the morning. Having a regular time to do deep work helps you make it a habit
• Get bored: It sounds counterintuitive to call being bored a productive habit, but being comfortable with boredom is important. Deep work isn’t always enjoyable, and boredom or frustration are what cause us to seek out distractions. Avoid using social media for entertainment as much as possible, and get more comfortable doing nothing.
• Be harder to contact: Email and other distractions can be reduced by asking people who contact you to do more work up front. Ask people to research their questions before coming to you, and provide as much info as possible in their emails. Same goes for you—spending time on communications instead of dashing off a quick email can minimize back and forth.
• Know your work habits: Do you work best in isolation? With periodic breaks? Are you working around a hectic schedule? You don’t need to overhaul your entire schedule—just set aside some time for deep work.

Highly productive people have mastered the skill of deep work.