Hyperfocus: How to Manage Your Attention in a World of Distraction

by Chris Bailey

You enter this mode by managing your attention deliberately and purposefully: by choosing one important object of attention, eliminating distractions that will inevitably arise as you work, and then focusing on just that one task. Hyperfocus is many things at once: it’s deliberate, undistracted, and quick to refocus, and it leads us to become completely immersed in our work. It also makes us immensely happy. Recall how energized you were by your work the last time you found yourself in this state. In hyperfocus you might even feel more relaxed than you usually are when you work. Allowing one task or project to consume your full attentional space means this state doesn’t make you feel stressed or overwhelmed. Your attentional space doesn’t overflow, and your work doesn’t feel nearly as chaotic. Since hyperfocus is so much more productive, you can slow down a bit and still accomplish an incredible amount in a short period of time.

HYPERFOCUSING ON HABITS The most important aspect of hyperfocus is that only one productive or meaningful task consumes your attentional space.

while your performance on complex tasks benefits when you focus more completely, your habitual-task performance actually suffers when you focus with your total attention. You may have experienced this the last time you noticed someone watching you walk, and you brought your focus to making sure you walked like a perfectly normal human being.

So How Do We Enter Hyperfocus Mode?

To hyperfocus, you must choose a productive or meaningful object of attention; eliminate as many external and internal distractions as you can; focus on that chosen object of attention; and continually draw your focus back to that one object of attention.

There’s a simple reason we fall victim to distraction: in the moment, distractions are more attractive objects of attention than what we really ought to be doing. This is true both at work and at home. Email alerts that pop into the corner of our screen are usually more tempting than the task we’re doing in another window;

Distractions are infinitely easier to deal with in advance—by the time they appear, it’s often already too late to defend our intention against them.

Third, hyperfocus becomes possible when we focus on our chosen object of attention for a predetermined amount of time. This involves hunkering down for a set period that is both comfortable and feasible. The more groundwork we lay in the first two steps of hyperfocus, the more deeply and confidently we can accomplish step three.

Fourth, and finally, hyperfocus is about drawing our attention back to the original object of attention when our mind wanders.

it takes an average of twenty-two minutes to resume working on a task after we’re distracted or interrupted. We fare even worse when we interrupt or distract ourselves—in these cases, it takes twenty-nine minutes to return to working on the original task.

The concept of hyperfocus can be summed up in a single tranquil sentence: keep one important, complex object of attention in your awareness as you work.

Attention without intention is wasted energy. Intention should always precede attention—in fact, the two ideas pair perfectly. Intention setting allows us to decide how we should spend our time; focusing our attention on that task gets it done efficiently. The best way to become more productive is to choose what you want to accomplish before you begin working.

Rule of 3: at the start of each day, choose the three things you want to have accomplished by day’s end.

The Rule of 3 is deceptively simple. By forcing yourself to pick just three main intentions at the start of each day, you accomplish several things. You choose what’s important but also what’s not important—the constraints of this rule push you to figure out what actually matters.

2. Your Most Consequential Tasks A second intention-setting ritual I follow is considering which items on my to-do list are the most consequential.

But how can you ensure you’re working intentionally on a moment-by-moment basis?

My favorite way to make sure I’m staying on track with my intentions is to frequently check what’s occupying my attentional space—to reflect on whether I’m focusing on what’s important and consequential or whether I’ve slipped into autopilot mode. To do so, I set an hourly awareness chime.

Set an hourly timer on your phone, smartwatch, or another device—this will easily be the most productive interruption you receive throughout the day. When your hourly chime rings, ask yourself the following: Was your mind wandering when the awareness chime sounded? Are you working on autopilot or on something you intentionally chose to do? (It’s so satisfying to see this improve over time.) Are you immersed in a productive task? If so, how long have you spent focusing on it? (If it was an impressive amount of time, don’t let the awareness chime trip you up—keep going!) What’s the most consequential thing you could be doing right now? Are you working on it? How full is your attentional space? Is it overflowing, or do you have attention to spare? Are there distractions preventing you from hyperfocusing on your work?

You don’t have to answer all of these questions—pick two or three prompts that you find most helpful, ones that will make you refocus on what’s important. Doing this hourly increases all three measures of attention quality: it helps you focus longer because you spot and prevent distractions on the horizon; you notice more often that your mind has wandered and can refocus it; and you can, over time, spend more of your day working intentionally.

moment. If you notice the same distractions frequently popping up, make a plan to deal with them. (We’ll do this in the next chapter.)

Setting specific intentions can double or triple your odds of success. With that in mind, let’s quickly turn my three vague intentions into implementation intentions: “Go to the gym” becomes “Schedule and go to the gym on my lunch break.” “Quit working when I get home” is reframed as “Put my work phone on airplane mode and my work laptop in another room, and stay disconnected for the evening.” “Get to bed by a reasonable time” becomes “Set a bedtime alarm for 10:00 p.m., and when it goes off, start winding down.” Implementation intentions are powerful in much the same way as habits. When you begin a habit, your brain carries out the rest of the sequence largely on autopilot. Once you have a game plan for an implementation intention, when you encounter the environmental cue to initiate it—your lunch break rolls around, you get home after a stressful day at work, or your bedtime alarm goes off—you subconsciously get the ball rolling to accomplish your goals. Your intentions take almost no effort to initiate. As

How to hyperfocus: Start by “feeling out” how long you want to hyperfocus. Have a dialogue with yourself about how resistant you feel toward the mode, particularly if you’re about to hunker down on a difficult, frustrating, or unstructured task. As an example: “Do I feel comfortable focusing for an hour? No way. Forty-five minutes? Better, but still no. Thirty minutes? That’s doable, but still . . . Okay, twenty-five minutes? Actually, I could probably do that.” It’s incredibly rewarding to experience your hyperfocus time limit increase over time. Push yourself—but not too hard.

Anticipate obstacles ahead of time.

I like to schedule my hyperfocus periods—several chunks of time throughout the week that I’ll use to focus on something important. This way, I make sure to carve out time to hyperfocus, instead of getting swept up in last-minute tasks

Set a timer.

Hyperfocus! When you notice that your mind has wandered or that you’ve gotten distracted, bring your attention back to your intention.

when you should hyperfocus: Whenever you can!

We’re the most productive and happy when we work on one meaningful thing at a time, so there’s no reason not to spend as much time in this mode as we possibly can.

Around the constraints of your work.

Make sure you account for time and energy constraints—and if possible, work around these obstacles when you’re planning your week.

When you need to work on a complex task.

Based on how averse you are to what you intend to accomplish.

The more aversive a task, the more important it is that we enter into a hyperfocused state so we can work on the task with intention.

As you’ll find, your ability to hyperfocus depends on a few factors, all of which affect the quality of your attention: How frequently you seek out new and novel objects of attention. (This is often why we initially resist a hyperfocus ritual.) How often you habitually overload your attentional space. How frequently your attention is derailed by interruptions and distractions. How many tasks, commitments, ideas, and other unresolved issues you’re keeping in your head. How frequently you practice meta-awareness (checking what’s already consuming your attention).

Once you become aware of how frequently you interrupt yourself, it’s hard to go back to working the same way again.

WHY WE LOVE DISTRACTIONS There is a simple reason why we fall victim to distractions. Even though we know they’re unproductive, in the moment they are much more enticing than our work. When our brain is even slightly resisting a task, it hunts for more attractive things it could do instead. Let your mind be for a few seconds, and you’ll find that it gravitates to more captivating (and usually less important) objects of attention than what you should be focusing on.

Our drive toward distractions is made worse by our brain’s built-in novelty bias and the fact that the websites and apps we frequent offer a hit of mindless stimulation and validation each time we visit them.

The above anecdote alone should dispel any notion that, as a productivity expert, I have a superhuman level of self-control. What I am better at is managing my impulses ahead of time. After choosing how long you’ll focus, eliminating distractions is the second step of hyperfocus. Eliminating distractions before you hunker down on a task makes focusing infinitely easier, as important tasks fill your attentional space quite naturally when there is nothing competing with them. Given that distractions have the potential to derail our productivity so frequently, and for so long, it’s imperative that we deal with them ahead of time—before we have to expend precious willpower to resist their allure.

Over time, I’ve developed two modes of working: A distraction-free mode, which I enter whenever I’m about to hyperfocus. A regular, reduced-distraction working mode, where I work with a manageable number of distractions throughout the day.

By removing every object of attention that’s potentially more stimulating and attractive than what you intend to do, you give your brain no choice but to work on that task.

To enter this mode and hyperfocus, I . . .

launch a distraction-blocking app on my computer, which prevents me from accessing the websites that ...

put my phone in “do not disturb” mode

grab a coffee

put on noise-canceling headphones

Treat yourself. After I’ve completed a hyperfocus session and I leave my distraction-free mode, I’ll occasionally treat myself to an all-you-can-eat buffet of distractions. Research shows that the more impulsive you are, the more stressed you become by blocking yourself from distractions. If you do have little self-control, or if you’re impulsive, indulging in the odd distraction break can be beneficial. (Side note: impulsiveness is also the character

To figure out which ones are worth taming, ask yourself: What distractions interrupt your focus throughout the day that aren’t worth losing twenty or more minutes of productivity over? It isn’t possible to shut off these distractions entirely, and you might not even want to, but it is worth becoming more thoughtful about what interrupts your work.

Every notification pulls you away from what you’re doing and reminds you there’s an entire digital world you’re missing out on. Notifications are deceiving, for while it takes just a second to glance at one, that moment can suck you into a digital vortex in which you easily lose a half hour of your time and attention. Not many notifications are worth this productivity drain.