How is Your Focus These Days?
First posted June 2021
Focus Like a Laser Beam; Daydream Like a Believer
“The most important aspect of hyperfocus is that only one productive or meaningful task consumes your attentional space.”
– Chris Bailey, “Hyperfocus”
How is your focus these days?
If you are interested in increasing your productivity, decreasing distractions and cranking up creative insights, and haven’t yet read “Hyperfocus; How to be More Productive in a World of Distraction” by Chris Bailey, I highly recommend it.
In “Hyperfocus,” Bailey explains how the brain has two powerful modes that we can tap into.
The first is “focused mode” (hyperfocus). This is necessary if one wishes to be highly productive. “When you hyperfocus on a task,” writes Bailey, “you expand one task, project, or other object of attention, so it fills your attentional space completely.”
“When we are in hyperfocus mode,” the author explains, “we are deliberate, undistracted, quick to refocus and it leads us to become completely immersed in our work.”
The second is “creative mode” (scatterfocus). This mode enables us to connect ideas in novel ways. Being in scatterfocus mode is all about NOT focusing! It’s about mind-wandering, daydreaming and directing our attention inward. This is when our creative insights come to us. “Scatterfocus helps you connect old ideas and create new ones,” explains Bailey.
There are three different styles of scatterfocus: capture mode, problem-crunching mode and habitual mode.
Research has found that habitual mode, “engaging in a simple task and capturing the valuable ideas and plans that rise to the surface while doing it,” is the most powerful form of scatterfocus.
In other words, when we take a break from a mentally-demanding task that requires hyperfocus and do a simple task we can pretty much do on auto-pilot, such as folding laundry, taking a shower, going for a walk or pruning a rosebush, this is when our mind tends to have the greatest insights.
Another benefit to scatterfocus is that it helps us recharge. Because, as Bailey reminds us: “Focusing on tasks all day consumes a good deal of mental energy.”
“Just as you hyperfocus by intentionally directing your attention toward one thing, you scatterfocus by deliberately letting your mind wander.”
– Chris Bailey, “Hyperfocus”
Learning how, when, and why to tap into these two different modes can be transformational to your work…and life.
The purpose of the book is to help people tap into these two modes — so they can concentrate more deeply, think more clearly, and work and live more deliberately…with intention versus just responding and reacting to external (and internal) stimuli.
For what we give our attention to is how we spend our days. And how we spend our days is how we live our lives…