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

by Chris Bailey

Start seeing your smartphone for what it really is: a productivity black hole that sits in your pocket.

I recommend leaving your device in another room. It may take your brain a few minutes to adjust to not having your phone or pad attached at your hip, but trust me, it’s worth powering through that initial resistance. It’s never healthy to be dependent on something—addictive, shiny rectangular devices included.

Whenever I have to focus, I adopt the two tactics mentioned above—and I also bring a pen and a notepad with me. In the notepad I write every distraction that makes its way into my mind—things I need to follow up on, tasks I can’t forget, new ideas, and so on.

Caffeine provides an invaluable focus boost, and while you usually have to pay this energy back later in the day as the drug metabolizes out of your system, the costs are often worth it. Caffeine boosts your mental and physical performance in virtually every measurable way (more on this page). Use this energy boost wisely to work on an important task or to read this book.

But some decisions are worth making deliberately. How we manage our attention is one of them.

(One of the most underrated skills: letting other people finish their sentences before starting yours.)

throughout the day, how frequently do you choose what to focus on?

While falling into autopilot mode can help us keep up the pace of work and life, attention is our most limited and constrained resource. The more we can manage our attention with intention, the more focused, productive, and creative we become.

The most urgent and stimulating things in your environment are rarely the most significant.

Directing your attention toward the most important object of your choosing—and then sustaining that attention—is the most consequential decision we will make throughout the day. We are what we pay attention to.

There are two main criteria to consider when categorizing what to focus on: whether a task is productive (you accomplish a lot by doing it) and whether a task is attractive (fun to do) or unattractive (boring, frustrating, difficult, etc.).

The recommended goal is to focus on tasks that are both attractive and productive.

We can use this concept of “chunking” things together to better remember any number of practical things throughout the day. This morning I was listening to an audiobook while getting groceries—a difficult combination to do simultaneously. I needed to buy three things: celery, hummus, and crackers. When I walked into the store, I visualized a triangle with the location of each of the three items as one of its points. Instead of struggling to remember my grocery list independently, I was able to walk the triangle. Visualizing a meal consisting of the same three ingredients would have done the trick too and is probably an even simpler idea.

Sentence structure can influence this process and slow down or speed up how quickly you read. Much as the world doesn’t combine many groups of data into sets greater than seven, every book is structured to accommodate a reader’s restricted attentional space. Sentences have a limited length and are punctuated by commas, semicolons, and dashes.

I've often thought the idea of "readability" is incredibly subjective. Perhaps the missing language for me has been the idea of cognitive chunking and how an idea fits into working memory. There is more to explore here to become a more effective writer.

Becoming aware of what you’re thinking about is one of the best practices for managing your attention. The more you notice what’s occupying your attentional space, the faster you can get back on track when your mind begins to wander, which it does a remarkable 47 percent of the time.

I believe it but citation needed.

“All thoughts want to be taken seriously, but few warrant it.”

Simply noticing what is occupying our attentional space has been shown to make us more productive.

Another plug for mindful meditation.

The tidier you keep your attentional space, the more clearly you think.

what’s occupying your attentional space at this moment? Take stock of everything that’s on your mind. If you find that your attentional space is a bit too full, simplify what’s in it, either by writing down these things so you can deal with them later or by refocusing on the book in your hands.

I’ve found that “productivity” has become a bit of a loaded term. What it usually connotes is a condition that feels cold, corporate, and overly focused on efficiency. I prefer a different (and friendlier) definition: productivity means accomplishing what we intend to.

Are you spinning your wheels or are you going somewhere?

Productivity is not about cramming more into our days but about doing the right thing in each moment.

What use is our time if not to create memories—of conversations, meals, vacations, and other experiences? When we fail to focus deeply on any one thing, we focus instead only on the “highlights” of what we’re doing and, as a consequence, later forget how we spent our time.

Time pressure narrows our focus on the task, restricting us from considering a number of more creative ways to complete it. We don’t question our approach as much, because we haven’t stepped back to consider the alternatives. This makes it easier to switch.

Choosing where your attention is focused and maintaining a clear attentional space accomplishes several things at once. You will accomplish what you intend to much more often; focus more deeply, because you become a better defender of your attentional space; remember more, because you’re able to more deeply process what you’re doing; experience less guilt and doubt, knowing you’ve worked with intention; waste less time working on unimportant things; fall victim to fewer distractions—both external and internal; experience greater mental clarity, reduced stress, and fewer feelings of being overwhelmed; feel a stronger purpose behind your work, because you’ve chosen what’s worthy of your attention (working with intention also prevents you from experiencing feelings of “dullness,” which stem from having a lack of purpose); and develop deeper relationships and friendships as you spend more attention, not just time, with people.

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.

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.

Setting an intention for what we plan to focus on is the most important step—the more productive and meaningful the task, the more productive and meaningful your actions become.

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.

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

Alternatively set these the night before. I've also tried setting my work day goals at the end of the previous day.

What will be different in the world—or in your work or in your life—as a result of your spending time doing each of the items on your list? What task is the equivalent of a domino in a line of one hundred that, once it topples over, initiates a chain reaction that lets you accomplish a great deal? Another way to look at this: when deciding what to do, instead of considering just the immediate consequences of an activity, also consider the second- and third-order consequences.

Some students set a vague intention while others set what Gollwitzer calls an “implementation intention.” As he explains the term: “Make a very detailed plan on how you want to achieve what you want to achieve. What I’m arguing in my research is that goals need plans, ideally plans that include when, where, and which kind of action to move towards the goal.”

Deep Work offers the same advice.

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.

“When the goals are tough, or when you have so many goals and it’s hard to attain them all, that’s when planning works particularly well,”

The more aversive you find a task or project, the more important it is to tame distractions ahead of time. You’re most likely to procrastinate on tasks that you consider boring, frustrating, difficult, ambiguous, or unstructured, or that you don’t find rewarding or meaningful. In fact, if you call to mind something you’re putting off doing, chances are it has most of these characteristics. 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.

To measure how stressed participants felt after multitasking or doing email, Mark and Czerwinski strapped monitors to them to wear twenty-four hours a day to chart their heart-rate variability—a scientifically validated measure of stress.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/heart-rate-variability-new-way-track-well-2017112212789

our brain is for having ideas, not for holding them. An empty brain is a productive brain, and the more stuff we get out of our heads, the more clearly we think.

A higher working memory capacity has been shown to reduce mind wandering when you’re focused on complex tasks. When your mind does wander, it actually wanders more productively—the larger the size of your attentional space, the more likely you are to think about (and plan for) the future. Even better, a larger attentional space means you’ll have extra attention to think about what you’ll work on next, while keeping your original intention in mind.

There is, however, one practice that has been proven in study after study to increase working memory capacity: meditation.

I’m about to explain the strengths of mind wandering. Part of its bad reputation is warranted: when our intention is to focus, daydreaming can destroy our productivity. But daydreaming is immensely potent when our intention is to solve problems, think more creatively, brainstorm new ideas, or recharge. As far as boosting our creativity is concerned, mind wandering is in a league of its own.

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.

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

Here are a few other break activities that have worked for me, and for the people I’ve coached: Going on a nature walk* Running outside or visiting the gym at work (if your company has one) or off-site Meditating (especially if your office has a relaxation room) Reading something fun and not work-related Listening to music, a podcast, or an audiobook Spending time with coworkers or friends Investing time in a creative hobby like painting, woodworking, or photography

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.

Why is ninety minutes the magic number? Our mental energy tends to oscillate in ninety-minute waves. We sleep in ninety-minute cycles, moving between periods of light, deep, and REM sleep. Our energy continues to follow the same rhythm after we wake: we feel rested for around ninety minutes and then tired for a short period of time—around twenty to thirty minutes. A short break every ninety minutes or so takes advantage of these natural peaks and valleys in energy cycles.

The best time to take a break is before you need to. Much as you’re probably already dehydrated when you feel thirsty, your focus and productivity have likely already begun to falter by the time you feel fatigued.

For his habitual scatterfocus routine, renowned physicist and Nobel laureate Richard Feynman would sip 7UP at a topless bar, where he could “‘watch the entertainment,’ and, if inspiration struck, scribble equations on cocktail napkins.”

Albert Einstein was undoubtedly a genius—he connected more dots, in more unique ways, than almost any other human. At the same time, he was bound by the same mental limits that we all are. To conceive of an idea like the general theory of relativity, he had to collect and connect an incredible number of dots so he could bridge ideas from nature and mathematical concepts, forming connections others hadn’t. To let his mind wander habitually, he played the violin for hours on end.

Generally speaking, a wandering mind makes us less happy, unless we’re thinking about something we’re interested in, something useful, or something novel. Scatterfocus—the intentional form of mind wandering—lets us experience all three.

One of my favorite researchers in the happiness field is the aforementioned Shawn Achor, the author of The Happiness Advantage. In the book, and in his TED talk, Shawn offers a few science-backed strategies to bolster your happiness. A few of his top suggestions: Recalling three things you’re grateful for at the end of each day (a good companion tactic to the Rule of 3, discussed in chapter 3) Journaling at the end of each day about one good experience you had Meditating (see chapter 5) Performing a random act of kindness

Enter hyperfocus mode at least once a day to deal with your most productive tasks; eliminate distractions and concentrate on one important thing. Enter scatterfocus multiple times a day—particularly habitual scatterfocus mode—so that you can plan for the future, connect ideas, and recharge your ability to hyperfocus. Do the same at home, hyperfocusing on meaningful experiences and conversations and scatterfocusing when you need to plan, rest, or ideate.