Cal Newport is a Computer Scientist & Bestselling Author. Cal is an MIT-trained computer science professor at Georgetown University who also writes about the intersections of technology, work, and the quest to find depth in an increasingly distracted world. In my research on focus I came across Cal’s writing and podcast. His ideas resonated deeply with me especially from the perspective of my previous tech career, but quickly my thinking transitioned when I realized that when it comes to focus, professional adults and kids alike experience similar challenges and may benefit from the same strategies to attain focus. In this post I aggregate and retrofit long-term and short-term protocols I learned from Cal Newport in service of self-learners and autodidacts everywhere.

Long-Term Protocols for focus

Long-term protocols for focus simply mean thought and action prescription/suggestion to help increase the focus capacity of a person. Results in the form of improved capacity to focus occur over longer periods of time and require disciplined, consistent practice. 

Brain Training

Purpose: Building focus through targeted mental exercises.

Brain training helps children develop their concentration just like a muscle—through regular, intentional exercises that challenge their cognitive endurance.

• Mindfulness Exercises: Simple mindfulness practices like deep breathing, focusing on sensations, or guided visualizations help children learn to quiet their minds. Practicing for just 5-10 minutes a day builds awareness and patience, setting a foundation for deeper focus.
• Memory and Concentration Games: Activities such as puzzles, memory games, or matching exercises challenge children to stay mentally present. Games like “Simon Says” or “Concentration” can be fun and engaging ways to enhance focus, as they require children to remember sequences or pay attention to details.
• Incremental Focus Sessions: Start with manageable periods—maybe 5-10 minutes of uninterrupted focus on a task—then gradually increase the time. Encourage children to track their focus time to see their growth over time, helping them set personal goals.

This protocol encourages homeschooling children to experience focus as a skill they can actively improve, creating a mindset where they feel in control of their attention as befitting of self-learning.

Study Load Limits

Purpose: Ensuring tasks remain manageable and attention is sustained.

Establishing clear study load limits prevents burnout and helps homeschool children approach their tasks with sustained energy. It’s important to recognize that focus wanes when tasks are too lengthy or overwhelming, especially for younger learners.

• Chunking and Breaks: Break assignments or subjects into smaller, manageable chunks. Rather than working on a single task for an hour, structure sessions with 15-25 minutes of focus followed by short breaks. For instance, a child might work on math for 20 minutes, take a 5-minute break, and then move on to another subject.
• Task Prioritization: Help children learn to rank tasks by priority, tackling the most important or challenging tasks when their energy is highest. This teaches them to focus on key priorities without feeling overwhelmed by an excessive workload.
• Time-Limited “Sprints”: Set up “focus sprints” for children to work intensely on a task for a limited period, such as 20 minutes, before switching activities. This maintains energy levels and keeps their attention sharp.

Setting these boundaries keeps learning fresh and prevents fatigue, promoting consistent, high-quality focus.

Communication Reform

Purpose: Creating clear guidelines for interruption-free learning.

This protocol involves establishing communication norms that respect focus time, teaching children that focused periods are valuable and worth protecting.

• Focus Signals: Use signals (like a “Do Not Disturb” sign or wearing headphones) that children can use to indicate they’re in a focused work period. This helps family members respect those times and minimizes interruptions.
• Family Communication Check-Ins: Schedule specific times to connect and discuss questions or issues instead of interrupting focus time. For instance, having a quick check-in before starting a learning block can clarify any doubts, ensuring focus time remains uninterrupted.
• Encourage Question Parking: Children often have questions that can pull them out of focus. Using a “question parking lot” (a notebook or whiteboard where they write down non-urgent questions) allows them to save their thoughts for later, keeping the present task uninterrupted.

This approach models respect for focused work and helps children build self-regulation skills by learning to manage their questions and needs within a structured routine.

Distraction Moderation

Purpose: Minimizing distractions to create an environment conducive to sustained focus.

Distraction moderation involves both environmental adjustments and teaching children how to manage internal distractions.

• Environmental Setup: Dedicate a clean, organized workspace for focused learning. Remove visual and auditory distractions as much as possible (e.g., turning off devices, closing unnecessary tabs, or placing toys out of sight). A well-prepared space helps signal that it’s time to focus.
• Managing Digital Distractions: If digital devices are part of the learning process, set specific rules, like using apps that block notifications during focus time or enabling “Do Not Disturb” modes. For older children, introduce browser extensions that limit social media or unrelated content during study hours.
• Internal Distraction Awareness: Teach children to recognize internal distractions, like restlessness or intrusive thoughts, and guide them in strategies to handle them. Simple techniques like deep breathing, stretching, or taking a quick walk can help refocus their attention when they feel their mind wandering.
• Daily Reflection on Distractions: At the end of the day, have children reflect on what distractions affected their focus and discuss strategies to manage these in the future. This reflective practice promotes self-awareness and problem-solving, helping children recognize and manage their own distraction patterns.

By proactively moderating distractions, children learn to create a workspace and mindset that supports deep, sustained focus, setting them up for successful self-directed learning.

These protocols, inspired by Cal Newport and interpreted for homeschoolers, work together to create a structured, supportive environment for focus. With brain training, balanced workloads, respectful communication, and minimized distractions, children gain both the external support and internal skills needed to build strong concentration habits. These focus protocols are adaptable and will serve children well, whether they’re homeschooling or navigating the world beyond.

Short-Term Focus Protocols for Quick Wins

You can’t become the best focuser you can be overnight but you can become a better focuser overnight. Getting better at achieving focus is an important precursor to improving motivation and subsequent results. So what can kids do to get better at focus quickly? By executing the following five focus procedures you and your kids can get better at focus right away. 

These short-term focus protocols are designed to yield quick results by building focused habits in manageable steps. They prioritize quality over quantity, helping you and your children gradually strengthen focus without overwhelming expectations. Here’s how to get started:

Clearly Differentiate Focus Blocks

To make focus blocks effective, start by defining specific time blocks for focused work. Identify which segments of the day require intense focus and prepare by eliminating distractions before the block begins. True focus is about minimizing “context switching” (jumping from task to task). When starting a focus block, limit potential distractions. For adults, this often means turning off the phone or keeping it in another room. For kids, homeschoolers and autodidacts, if they’re protected from distractions like constant messages or notifications, they’re already set up for success.

By distinguishing focus blocks from other activity times, you test your own discipline: “Can I stay on task for this specific amount of time without breaking my focus?” and “Can I stick to my focus guidelines for this block?”

Start Small: Focus Less to Focus Better

This may sound counterintuitive, but in the short term, focusing less can actually be more effective. Aim for 2-4 high-quality (short) focus blocks per week to build your focus gradually. Over-ambitious goals, like expecting to stay focused for four hours when focus is a current challenge, set you up for failure. When overly ambitious goals go unmet, the brain, a natural “plan evaluator,” may begin to doubt the plan entirely. This doubt undermines motivation and can lead to abandoning the goal altogether.

Instead, set more realistic goals, like one hour of focused work per day. This approach increases your chances of success and builds trust in your ability to stay focused, fostering a sustainable path toward longer focus sessions over time.

Use a Designated Focus Space

Create a specific space for focus work, ideally different from your usual workspace. This could be a quiet room, a dedicated corner, or even the dining table when it’s distraction-free. The key is to train yourself to recognize this area as your “focus zone.” The act of going to this space becomes a small ritual that reinforces commitment and prepares the mind to enter focus mode.

Produce Artifacts of Your Work

Each focus session should yield tangible outputs, or “artifacts,” from your work. For example, if you’re researching, take organized notes that capture the main ideas you’ve encountered. These artifacts serve as both milestones and anchors, marking your progress and keeping your attention grounded. Think of these outputs as “breadcrumbs” along your learning path, guiding you back to key insights.

Artifacts play a crucial motivational role by giving a sense of accomplishment and progress, which fuels further focus. Additionally, creating artifacts helps capture the “Aha” moments that often arise in focused work. Rather than letting these moments slip away with just a fleeting sense of insight, artifacts allow you to record your ideas in a concrete and actionable form.

Embrace Movement: The Walking Focus Technique

Aristotle’s Peripatetic school emphasized the power of movement and walking for thinking. Walking has long been seen as complementary to deep thought, perhaps an evolutionary trait of our bipedal species. In modern workplaces, walking meetings or brainstorming sessions have proven effective for clarity and problem-solving.

If you’re struggling to focus or sense a block coming, take a 15-20 minute walk with a specific idea or objective in mind. Walking provides a change of scenery and rhythm that often refreshes attention. Upon returning to your desk, your mind is re-centered, making it easier to focus deeply on the task at hand.

In Summary, short-term focus protocols emphasize quality over quantity by helping you and your homeschooling kids build sustainable focus habits:

• Differentiate focus blocks clearly.
• Start with realistic, manageable focus sessions.
• Designate a specific space for focus work.
• Create meaningful artifacts from each session.
• Use walking as a focus-refreshing technique.

With these strategies, you’re creating a practical foundation for focus, gradually building up both discipline and mental endurance for more intensive, long-term focus goals. I can’t stress this enough, focus is absolutely foundational to learning and self-learning and autodidacticism in particular.

Thank you to Cal for making these ideas about Focus so cogent. If you would like to explore his writing you can visit his webpage – https://calnewport.com/writing/ .

If you think these ideas and their application to the homeschool environment resonates with you and you’d like to do more, get in touch. I offer free introduction sessions to explore how I can help your kids improve their self-learning capacity also by improving their focus capacity. I also offer a growing list of courses and other curated resources to help you become better facilitators for your kids. If you are only curious about my process you can check out my service page.

I love getting feedback and getting into it with like minded people so please leave a comment.