Hyperfocus: How to Work Less to Achieve More

by Chris Bailey

Just as you are what you eat, you are what you pay attention to. Attention is finite and is the most valuable ingredient you have to live a good life—so make sure everything you consume is worthy of it. As I’ll cover in depth later, bringing awareness to what you consume can provide

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 remaining box on the chart is purposeful work—the productivity sweet spot. These are the tasks we’re put on earth to do; the tasks we’re most engaged in as we do them; the tasks with which we make the largest impact. Very few tasks fit into this box—most people I’ve encountered have three or four at most.

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

Your focus determines your reality. —Qui-Gon Jinn, Star Wars: Episode I:

“Attentional space” is the term I use to describe the amount of mental capacity we have available to focus on and process things in the moment. Our attentional space is what we’re aware of at any given time—it’s the scratch pad or clipboard in our brain that we use to temporarily store information as it’s being processed. Attentional space allows us to hold, manipulate, and connect information simultaneously, and on the fly.

David Cain, puts it, “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.

You’ll also find that your attentional space expands and shrinks depending on your mood.

For all the power it provides, the content of your attentional space is ephemeral; its memory lasts for an average of just ten seconds.

There are two kinds of tasks in our life and work: habits, which we can perform without much thought and require minimal attentional space, and complex tasks, which can be done well only with dedicated focus.

Our attentional space can process even more when we’re working on unrelated tasks. Take sorting and putting away the laundry while talking on the phone, for example. These activities tap into several senses—sorting laundry into our motor and visual senses; the phone call into our auditory sense. Because we use different brain regions to process them, the tasks aren’t competing for the same mental resources.

Remember, we can focus only on forty bits of information,

Another variable is the actual size of your attentional space—a measure that’s different for everyone.

Fitting the right amount and type of tasks into attentional space is both an art and an investment in productivity. The costs of overloading our attention can be pretty severe.

Intention enables us to prioritize so we don’t overload our attentional space. Doing so also leaves us feeling more calm: just as you likely feel uncomfortable after overeating, stuffing your attentional space with too many tasks can make you feel unsettled.

At any one time, your attentional space should hold at most two key things that you are processing: what you intend to accomplish and what you’re currently doing.

The state of your attentional space determines the state of your life. When your attentional space is overwhelmed, you, in turn, feel overwhelmed. When your attentional space is clear, you also feel clear. The tidier you keep your attentional space, the more clearly you think.

Continually seeking novel stimuli makes us feel more productive—after all, we’re doing more in each moment. But again, just because we’re busier doesn’t mean we’re getting more accomplished.

it is only when we pay attention to something that our brain actively encodes it into memory.

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. If you’re working on a pressure- or deadline-free project, consider taking a break before starting something else so more of that attentional residue can dissipate. As far as your productivity is concerned, the best time to take a break is after you’ve finished a big task.

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;

You can use these yardsticks to measure your progress as you adopt the tactics in this book into your life: 1. How much of your time you spend intentionally 2. How long you can hold your focus in one sitting 3. How long your mind wanders before you catch it

When doing such habitual tasks, it’s best to not focus completely on what you’re doing. Save hyperfocus for your most complex tasks—things that will actually benefit from your complete attention,

This first step to reaching hyperfocus mode is essential—intention absolutely has to precede attention.

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.

It’s normal for our mind to wander, but the key is to center it so we can spend time and attention on what’s actually in front of us.

Kind of sounds like Vipassana, doesn’t it. Till now, hyper focus has proven to be the same as mindfulness restricted to the scope of work/purpose instead of life. Seems like hyperfocus is subset of mindfulness.

Attention without intention is wasted energy.

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

If you’re like me, you may also find it handy to set three weekly intentions, as well as three daily personal intentions—

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

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:

Hyperfocus! When you notice that your mind has wandered or that you’ve gotten distracted, bring your attention back to your intention. Again, don’t be too tough on yourself when this happens—this is the way your brain is wired to work. If you feel like going for longer when your timer rings—which you probably will because you’ll be on a roll—don’t stop.

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

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).

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.

I define a “distraction” as anything that can direct us away from our intentions. In this respect, distractions and interruptions are much the same thing, because they both distance us from what we intend to accomplish.

Keeping a distractions list as you focus will remove distractions from your head so you can refocus more quickly and deal with them later (see chapter 0.5). If you’re a worrier, create a list of everything weighing on your mind (while scheduling a time to consider the validity of each of the entries).

Feel out your own threshold: start with setting a few intentions each day, and keep a to-do list and a calendar. Unresolved mental loops can tug at your attention throughout the day, especially when you’re immersed in your most important work. Begin closing these open loops so you can focus, and hyperfocus, more easily on your work. Continuously capture unresolved commitments and ideas as they come up, and get into a habit of revisiting them at a set time later. This will free up a lot of attentional space to spend on better things.

To measure if you have enough work in general, assess how much of your day you spend doing unproductive busywork. If you’re high on the busywork scale, you may have room to take on significantly more tasks—and become more engaged and productive in the process.

the size of attentional space is determined by a measure that cognitive psychology refers to as “working memory capacity”—how many pieces of data you can hold in your mind simultaneously (usually about four chunks of information). The greater your working memory capacity, the more information you can hold at the same time and the greater your ability to process complex tasks.

Like hyperfocus, meditation involves continually returning your focus to a single object of attention—usually your breath—as soon as you notice your mind has wandered from it.

Each time you return your wandering mind to the details of your breath, you heighten your executive functioning: how much control you have over your attention. This eventually enables you to improve each measure of the quality of your attention. You’ll be able to focus for longer, your mind will wander less, and you’ll be able to work with greater intention. You experience this same benefit during hyperfocus. Like meditation, hyperfocus is a practice that compounds upon itself—the more you practice, the more you learn to manage your attention and the longer you’re able to focus the next time around.

Meditation has also been shown to prevent “the deterioration of [working memory capacity] during periods of high stress”—such as working in a chaotic environment or dealing with personal concerns.

Approach each meditation session with a genuine curiosity about where your mind will wander. My meditation rule is simple, and one I’ve stuck with for years: it doesn’t matter how long I meditate, as long as I do so each day.

Mindfulness is about becoming conscious of what is filling your mind and noticing the circumstances of the current moment. This includes noting anything you happen to be perceiving, feeling, or thinking. Mindfulness differs from hyperfocus in one major respect: it’s about focusing on the circumstances of the present, rather than becoming immersed in them.

Begin to practice mindfulness by choosing one daily task that doesn’t consume your complete attention—sipping your morning coffee, walking through your office, or taking a shower—and intentionally be with that experience for a minute or two.

When you find yourself becoming lost in thought, bring your mind back to what you originally intended to focus on—and laugh at how difficult it can be to tame. Don’t be hard on yourself when your mind wanders—remember, your brain was built to do this.

Here’s the key: the smaller the object of attention, the more your mind will wander, but the more you’ll expand the size of your attentional space as you focus on it. The more quickly you’re able to get back on track after your mind ventures off during a mindfulness or meditation session, the better you’ll become at focusing at work and at home.

If you take away one lesson from this chapter, it should be that few practices will improve the quality of your attention—and the size of your attentional space—more than meditation and mindfulness.

I could sense the book building to this point but it took a very long time actually doing that. Hyperfocus sounded way to much like meditation and mindfulness. Makes me wonder if I should have focused on those two rather than reading this book. But I will stay with the book till the end before declaring so with confidence.