Hyperfocus: How to Work Less to Achieve More

by Chris Bailey

disconnecting is one of the most powerful ways to spark new and innovative ideas.

When we’re talking with a coworker or a loved one, we automatically focus on forming clever responses in our head before she finishes her thought. (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? In other words, roughly how much of your time do you spend deliberately and with intention, deciding in advance what you want to do and when you’ll do it?

After we snap out of autopilot mode, we consider what we really ought to be doing and make the effort to realign our neurons to focus on that instead.

This is the problem with managing your attention on autopilot mode. The most urgent and stimulating things in your environment are rarely the most significant. This is why switching off autopilot mode is so critical. 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.

Without selective interest, experience is utter chaos. —William James

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.

Leaving a theater with a stomachache, because you didn’t have enough attention left to notice you’d eaten too much popcorn.

“attention residue” to describe the fragments of the previous task that remain in our attentional space after we shift to another activity: “It could be that you’re sitting in a meeting and your mind keeps going to a project you were working on right before the meeting, or something you anticipate doing right after the meeting.

One study found that when we continually switch between tasks, our work takes 50 percent longer, compared with doing one task from start to completion.

Allowing one task or project to consume your full attentional space means this state doesn’t make you feel stressed or overwhelmed.

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

“connect with five new people at the cocktail reception.”

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?

mode, or choose something

RETHINKING BOREDOM Answer this question honestly: When was the last time you were bored? Really think about it. Can you remember? Chances are it was a long time ago, maybe before welcoming devices into your life. Never in human history have we divided our attention among so many things. In the moment this can feel like a benefit—we always have something to do—but the disadvantage is that distracting devices have basically eliminated boredom from our lives.