Add these 2 routines to your workday in 2026, says focus and productivity expert: 'Get more out of your life outside work'

With 2026 around the corner, many people are eyeing tips and tricks to bring into the new year at home and at work.

And while many are considering a new morning or evening routine, there are two other routines you might want to incorporate into your schedule, specifically at work, to better focus when you need to and disconnect at the end of the day, says Cal Newport, a computer science professor at Georgetown University and author of several books on focus and productivity.

Newport is a proponent of using time blocking to reserve time during your day for deep work, meaning the tasks that are most cognitively demanding.

The first routine Newport recommends is for the run-up to a deep work block.

“Our brain is not wired for sustained concentration on an abstract or symbolic topic,” Newport says. “Give your brain time, give it some help shifting over into deep work mode because it’s a very unnatural thing you’re asking your brain to do.”