I'm really enjoying the articles and podcasts of Farnam Street, where Shane Parrish is the writer/host. Here is an important lesson he offers: "Learning How to Think: The Skill No One Taught You." This lesson is to avoid multi-tasking. Researchers have found that the more one multi-tasks, the less effective one is at learning. When you multitask, you are always restarting, never going down to the next level. I want to be someone unique, at least sometimes. I love the good ideas of others. I swim in them most of my hours on the planet. But at least once in a while, I’d like to step out of the echo-chamber and contribute something original to the world. What I have found is that when I'm distracted by phone calls or texts even once every 15 minutes, I never develop high quality ideas of my own. That's why I need to shelter myself in blocks of many hours when I'm writing. At least 3 hours at a time. That's when good things happen. On this point, Shane cites to "Solitude and Leadership," an essay by William Deresiewicz:

I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom. It’s only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea. By giving my brain a chance to make associations, draw connections, take me by surprise. And often even that idea doesn’t turn out to be very good. I need time to think about it, too, to make mistakes and recognize them, to make false starts and correct them, to outlast my impulses, to defeat my desire to declare the job done and move on to the next thing.