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" Dear E. Jean: I&amp;#039;m a 23-year-old electrical engineer working her first real job, at a tech startup. The company recently raised $180 million\u2014 so the pressure is on, and I&amp;#039;m falling apart! There&amp;#039;s so much work, so much is expected of me, and I expect so much of myself that I can&amp;#039;t seem to focus. Two months ago I pulled my first all-nighter. (In college I was the dorm recluse who was always asleep by 10 p.m.) I now realize that all-nighters aren&amp;#039;t deadly, but I&amp;#039;m worried because I&amp;#039;ve begun pulling more and more of them. I&amp;#039;m also becoming more social, meeting new people\u2014one of whom filmed me driving a robot with EEG signals, and the video went viral! So now I&amp;#039;m procrastinating on the Internet. But the deeper problem remains: Why can&amp;#039;t I force myself to work efficiently anymore? \u2014Don&amp;#039;t Know How to &amp;quot;Woman Up&amp;quot; My Dear Woman:   You&amp;#039;re supposed to pull all-nighters. Silicon Valley is built on all-nighters. When I was a writer at Saturday Night Live, it was one long, weird, wonderful, never-ending, spleen-rattling, staggering, brain-crushing, hilarious all-nighter. Now listen: You&amp;#039;ve worked hard and spent a ton to put yourself in this job\u2014 electrical engineering degrees don&amp;#039;t come cheap\u2014so it&amp;#039;s time to stop being an old lady and step up to world-class performance. Let&amp;#039;s focus. Here&amp;#039;s the trick: Take your current project and narrow it down to one aspect that you can accomplish each day. Thin-slice it. Jane Austen&amp;#039;s most famous quote about her writing is that she worked on a &amp;quot;little bit&amp;quot;\u2014two inches wide\u2014&amp;quot;of ivory.&amp;quot; Kill expectation. Eliminate the extraneous bull hockey, chew gum (it boosts brain power\u2014and your metabolism by 20 percent), and fixate. When you compress things down to a human level, you can nerd out with joy. And when I say &amp;quot;focus&amp;quot; I don&amp;#039;t mean strapping your garters to the chair. Text your new friends and procrastinate a little\u2014procrastinating is a way of brainstorming\u2014 but no multitasking. Ninety-eight percent of people perform worse on projects when they&amp;#039;re multitasking, according to Garth Sundem&amp;#039;s entrancing book Brain Trust. And when you take a break? Walk outside and look at a tree. It helps restore your attention. P.S. As reported by Gareth Cook in The Boston Globe, recent experiments by Harvard Business School Professor Michael Norton, who worked with colleagues at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, show that if you spend a little time doing &amp;quot;something for someone else,&amp;quot; you&amp;#039;ll feel less pressed for time later. Professor Norton theorizes that &amp;quot;doing something for someone else&amp;quot; shows us &amp;quot;that we can get things done&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;makes us feel in control of our lives.&amp;quot; Good luck! And ask for stock options instead of a raise! E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com  MORE E. JEAN: Cyber Stalking How to Cope After a Spouse Dies How to Get a Job at Rock Bottom "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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