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

by Chris Bailey

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?

Setting specific intentions can double or triple your odds of success.

Start by “feeling out” how long you want to hyperfocus.

Anticipate obstacles ahead of time.

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 our brain is even slightly resisting a task, it hunts for more attractive things it could do instead.

Fretting over things you simply can’t control is a waste of time, energy, and attention.

A distraction-free mode is especially valuable after a vacation or long weekend, as during these periods you’ll have less energy and be more susceptible to distraction.

Email is a great example of a distraction that’s important to tame but not eliminate.

To modify your environment to be more conducive to working or living, you should eliminate objects of attention that will potentially derail your focus.

Take stock of the distractions around you.

Distance yourself.

Introduce more productive cues into your environment.

Keeping a distractions list as you focus will remove distractions from your head so you can refocus more quickly and deal with them later

Recall the three measures we can use to measure the quality of our attention: how much time we spend working with intention; how long we’re able to focus on one task; and how long our mind wanders before we catch it doing so.

Creating a distraction-free mode lets you carve out time to spend intentionally while eliminating the more attractive objects of attention that would ordinarily derail your focus. Working with fewer distractions in general lets you eliminate novel objects of attention throughout the day and reclaim more of your attention for what’s important. Utilizing both of these working modes helps you train your brain to wander less and focus longer. Simplifying your working and living environments eliminates a slew of tempting distractions. Clearing your head of distracting open loops lets you work more clearly and frees even more attentional space for your most productive tasks.

Our work tends to expand to fit the available completion time—in productivity circles, this phenomenon is known as Parkinson’s law.

To measure if you have enough work in general, assess how much of your day you spend doing unproductive busywork.

We remember more of what we’re doing, and our experiences become more meaningful as a result. We spend more time in the moment and get things done more quickly and with less effort. I like to do this by setting three personal daily intentions in addition to my three work goals, even if one happens to be binge-watching a show on Netflix.

As David Augsburger, a Baptist minister and author, has put it: “Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.”

I call this mode “scatterfocus,” because in it, our attention scatters to focus on nothing in particular. While hyperfocus involves directing your attention outward, scatterfocus is about directing it inward, inside your own mind.

Finally, our mind wanders to think about the future 48 percent of the time—more than our past and present thinking combined.*

We consider our goals only about 4 percent of the time when we’re immersed in what we’re doing, while in scatterfocus mode we think about them 26 percent of the time. The more time you spend scatterfocusing between tasks—rather than indulging in distractions—the more thoughtful and productive your actions become.

There are two ways your mind wanders: unintentionally and intentionally. Unintentional wandering takes place without your awareness, when you don’t choose to enter into the mode. This is where I draw the line between mind wandering and scatterfocus. Scatterfocus is always intentional.

I’ve found it helpful to distinguish among a few different styles of scatterfocus: Capture mode: Letting your mind roam freely and capturing whatever comes up. Problem-crunching mode: Holding a problem loosely in mind and letting your thoughts wander around it. Habitual mode: Engaging in a simple task and capturing the valuable ideas and plans that rise to the surface while doing it. Research has found this mode is the most powerful. Of the three styles, capture mode is best for identifying what’s on your mind; problem-crunching mode is best for mulling over a specific problem or idea; and habitual mode is best for recharging and connecting the greatest number of ideas.

For years I have been scheduling one or two fifteen-minute chunks of time each week to let my mind wander freely, during which I capture any valuable and actionable material.

the key to practicing habitual scatterfocus is to frequently check what thoughts and ideas are in your attentional space.

With hyperfocus you direct your attention outward; with scatterfocus you direct your attention inward. One is about attention; the other is about inattention.

There are many signs that indicate you’re running low on energy and should recharge your attention by deliberately entering scatterfocus mode: Switching often among tasks and being unable to sustain focus on one thing Losing your grip on your intentions and working in a more reactive way Getting tasks done at a noticeably slower rate (e.g., reading the same important email several times to comprehend it) Opting to do less important, more mindless work—like checking email, social media, etc. Unintentionally slipping into scatterfocus mode

Frequent recharging may also be necessary if you find you aren’t motivated by a particular project, or by your work in general. The more you need to regulate your behavior—to resist distractions and temptations or push yourself to get things done—the more often you’ll need to recharge. (This is why deadlines can be so useful: they force you to focus on something.)

Research on the value of breaks points to two simple rules: Take a break at least every ninety minutes. Break for roughly fifteen minutes for each hour of work you do.

We lose more than we gain when we compromise our sleep to work longer hours.

Hyperfocus is about focusing on a single thing.

habitual scatterfocus lets our minds connect the problems we’re tackling with what we experience, as well as where our minds happen to wander.

But if you want to level up even further, here are six ways to do so. 1. Scatter your attention in a richer environment.

2. Write out the problems you’re trying to crack.

Another powerful idea for the smaller nuts you’re trying to crack: in addition to setting three next-day intentions at the end of the workday, note the largest problems you’re in the middle of processing.

3. Sleep on a problem.

4. Step back.

5. Intentionally leave tasks unfinished.

6. Consume more valuable dots.

There are two steps to upping the quality of information you collect: Take stock of everything you consume. Intentionally consume more valuable information.

Once you’ve taken stock, here are ten ideas for how you can change your habits to intentionally consume more valuable information. Start by trying two or three that resonate particularly strongly with you.

1. Consume things you care about, especially when few others do.

2. Eliminate some trash.

3. Choose a few valuable things to add.

4. Notice what you consume on autopilot mode.

5. Veg out . . . intentionally.

6. Reevaluate what you’re consuming as you’re consuming it.