From my own experience going through a similar realization and trying to apply it to my own productivity, I found that certain things I tried actually helped me sustainably work more productively but others did not.
What has worked for me based on my experience with exam-like situations is having clear goals and time boxes for work sessions, e.g. the blog post example you described. What hasn’t worked for me is trying to impose aggressively short deadlines on myself all the time to incentivize myself to focus more intensely. Personally, the level of focus I have during exams is driven by an unsustainable level of stress, which, if applied continuously, would probably lead to burnout and/or procrastination binging. That said, occasionally artificially imposing deadlines has helped me engage exam-style focus when I need to do something that might otherwise be boring because it mostly involves executing known strategies rather than doing more open, exploratory thinking. For hard thinking though, I’ve actually found that giving myself conservatively long time boxes helps me focus better by allowing me to relax and take my time. I saw you mentioned struggling with reading textbooks above, and while I still struggle trying to read them too, I have found that not expecting miraculous progress helps me get less frustrated when I read them.
Related to all this, you used the term “deep work” a few times so you may already be familiar with Cal Newport’s work. But, if you’re not I recommend a few of his relevant posts (1, 2) describing how he produces work artifacts that act as a forcing function for learning the right stuff and staying focused.
From my own experience going through a similar realization and trying to apply it to my own productivity, I found that certain things I tried actually helped me sustainably work more productively but others did not.
What has worked for me based on my experience with exam-like situations is having clear goals and time boxes for work sessions, e.g. the blog post example you described. What hasn’t worked for me is trying to impose aggressively short deadlines on myself all the time to incentivize myself to focus more intensely. Personally, the level of focus I have during exams is driven by an unsustainable level of stress, which, if applied continuously, would probably lead to burnout and/or procrastination binging. That said, occasionally artificially imposing deadlines has helped me engage exam-style focus when I need to do something that might otherwise be boring because it mostly involves executing known strategies rather than doing more open, exploratory thinking. For hard thinking though, I’ve actually found that giving myself conservatively long time boxes helps me focus better by allowing me to relax and take my time. I saw you mentioned struggling with reading textbooks above, and while I still struggle trying to read them too, I have found that not expecting miraculous progress helps me get less frustrated when I read them.
Related to all this, you used the term “deep work” a few times so you may already be familiar with Cal Newport’s work. But, if you’re not I recommend a few of his relevant posts (1, 2) describing how he produces work artifacts that act as a forcing function for learning the right stuff and staying focused.