Is This Innocent Habit Training Your Brain To Resist Deep Work?
3 strategic brain exercises to get back razor-sharp focus.
The brain is so frustrating sometimes.
I mean, I’ve done everything right. I closed the door. I left my phone on the other side, along with the cats (much to their dismay). I closed all tabs except for Soft Murmur and I’m duly staring at my notes.
Yet my brain? Doesn’t care. Literally crickets. Soon, I’m distracted by the only thing I didn’t hide or remove, like the overflowing camera roll unwisely iClouded to my laptop, or dust on the top bookshelves.
And ironically, it was also through procrastination that I discovered Cal Newport’s book Deep Work some time ago. In it, the author explains why many people often battle this problem. As it turns out, there’s quite an unexpected culprit hiding behind the brain’s resistance to cooperate.
If you too often struggle when your brain refuses to switch to deep focus, you might be surprised to hear there’s a chance you’ve unknowingly trained it to do so. But how?
You never allow your brain to get bored.
Instant entertainment can be a brain trap
For the first time in human history, we’ve been able to completely eliminate situational boredom from our everyday lives with modern technology.
Instead of people-watching while waiting at the post office or flicking through dull magazines in the dentist’s waiting room, we can now provide our brain with endless entertainment of its own choosing. Instantly, and anywhere.
And just like that, most of us have created a brand new, hard to resist sensation in our brain. Our boredom has become a craving that needs to be satisfied. It’s how we get that constant, almost involuntary twitch to reach for the phone the second we get slightly disinterested.
Over time, these constant doses of digital distraction build up and grow into a deeply ingrained habit. Without even noticing, we effectively train our brain to expect (and get) instant gratification — in this case, a dose of entertainment as soon as the current moment seems lacking.
And while no one likes boredom, and it’s great we have invented such efficient access to entertainment, it’s actually not so great for the brain’s ability to focus. Because as a result, our brain can find it much harder to cope with prolonged monotonous moments or unstimulating cognitive activities.
Luckily, with the right strategy, most built-up habits can be altered. You can learn to re-train your brain to become comfortable with boredom again, which can help to regain your ability to focus for longer. According to Cal Newport, the following three gradual steps make a great start:
Step up your boredom game
When you allow yourself to get a little bored sometimes, your brain gets to break the usual boredom-distraction pattern. It becomes more flexible. Resisting the impulse to grab your phone in a boring situation can be hard, but it’s a necessary first step to move away from the ingrained habit.
Next time you’re waiting at the checkout, or are early for your appointment at the hairdresser, deliberately keep your phone in your pocket. Try not to check your news feed when your dinner date leaves the table to use the bathroom. The more you do it, the easier it gets. You also notice more of your surroundings and increase awareness of the present moment.
How does this work?
Known as neuroplasticity, the rewriting of a pattern in your brain through conscious-mind action can effectively alter or even eliminate heavily rooted behaviors. An automatic response to boredom like reaching for the smartphone is a learned reactive behavior you can reduce with practice.
As your brain gradually gets used to the fact you don’t always cure boredom with immediate response, your tolerance of monotonous activities will increase. And with it, the brain’s ability to fully focus on just one simple target gets stronger too.
Introduce productive meditation
This is a strong mental exercise, but don’t expect a chill-session on a meditation cushion. It includes the added bonus of long-distance walking.
Grab a work problem or a mind-puzzle, set off for a long walk, and set yourself a goal to make progress on this problem in your head before you get back home. This doesn’t mean you have to find a complete solution every time. The task is simply to make some progress on the issue or to come up with an actionable bunch of follow-up steps.
It’s like cognitive pull-ups. At first, it’s hard to do, but if you work diligently, you get notable results. Practice this method of productive meditation for a month, and you can substantially increase your mind’s comfort to sustain prolonged concentration on a single target.
How does this work?
Here, you are introducing intensity back into your cognitive problem-solving process. By focusing on a single puzzle during the entire walk, your mind has no choice but to dig deep. Intensity is a crucial part of the accomplishment equation:
Time alone doesn’t always guarantee results. If you don’t spend any of your working hours in intense focus, you run the risk to only scratch the surface of what your results can be once you teach your brain to reach and stay in a deep flow.
Monitor progress with interval training
Cal Newport used interval training in a college project working with undergraduates who grew up surrounded by technology and social media. At the start of the project, the student attention span averaged 10 minutes. Through combining interval training, productive meditation, and embracing a little more boredom, they were able to stretch their focus span from 10 minutes to 2 hours in just one semester.
For efficient interval training, assess your starting point first. Try 30 minutes of focused work, and if your brain dozes off halfway through, reduce it to 15 minutes. Then, stick to 15-minute chunks of deep work until you are repeatedly filling the interval without losing attention. Then, add 15 more minutes, and repeat, until you consistently reach 30 minutes of full focus. Continue stretching until you can keep deep concentration for at least an hour.
How does this work?
Similar to Pomodoro or Timeboxing, using systematic interval training as a time management method allows you to find your feet and then consistently prolong the highly focused time as your brain gets better at it. You systematically stretch your focus muscle and learn to make the most of your higher cognitive tolerance, without the exercise being too daunting to take on.
We all have days when we feel like we’re barely scratching the surface of what our results could be, if only our brain participated better.
Or the days technology gets the better of us, and it’s hard to control the craving for instant relief from boredom.
But the good news is, with the above exercises on repeat, you can learn to outsmart your brain. And not only can you re-frame the old pattern, but also create space for a new one to form.
So, let a little everyday boredom fuel your focus. Experiment with stretching the time and intensity, support your mind’s flexibility with regular cognitive pull-ups, and watch your work reflect the effort.
Apparently, I’m also on Twitter
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