HYPERFOCUS

• disconnecting is one of the most powerful ways to spark new and innovative ideas.
• there’s a finite limit to how many things we can focus on.
• But how many of these eleven million bits can our minds consciously process and focus on at once? Just forty
of them. Not forty million or forty thousand, but forty. When we choose what to focus on, we’re effectively
sipping from a fire hose.

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.
• Simply noticing what is occupying our attentional space has been shown to make us more productive.
• But the same is not true for habits— in fact, we’re able to multitask surprisingly well with habits.

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.

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

• when we continually switch between tasks, our work takes 50 percent longer, compared with doing one task
from start to completion.
• How much of your time you spend intentionally?
• How long you can hold your focus in one sitting
• How long your mind wanders before you catch it

YOU’RE NEVER TOO BUSY TO HYPERFOCUS.

One of the best ways to get more done— and done faster— is by preventing yourself from focusing on things that
aren’t important.

You enter into hyperfocus when you engage both your thoughts and your external environment and direct them at
one thing intentionally.

The four stages of hyperfocus are modelled on this framework:

• To hyperfocus, you must choose a productive or meaningful object of attention;

Attention without intention is wasted energy.

HOW TO HYPERFOCUS?

1. Start by “feeling out” how long you want to hyperfocus.

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 When you eliminate distractions, your energy goes further, and you can work for longer periods without
needing a break. By disabling distractions ahead of time, you expend significantly less mental energy regulating
your behaviour in order to focus on your work.

common sense isn’t always common action.

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.

It doesn’t matter if you work at a slower, more deliberate pace if you’re continuously working in the right
direction. What you lose in speed you make up for in intentionality.

• Switching tasks less frequently also helps us think more clearly— we experience less attentional residue,
which can take a toll on our limited attentional space.
• Consciously making your tasks more complex, and taking on more complex ones, is another powerful way to
enter into a hyperfocused state, as they will consume more of your attention.
• In his ground breaking book Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi offers intriguing insights about when we’re most
likely to enter into a flow state: when the challenge of completing a task is roughly equal to our ability to do
so, and we become totally immersed in the task.
• 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.
YOU ALWAYS HAVE TIME— YOU JUST SPEND IT ON OTHER THINGS.

If you feel you “don’t have time” to take something on, ask yourself whether you could free up your schedule
enough to meet with your boss or clean your inbox.

• As far as boosting our creativity is concerned, mind wandering is in a league of its own.
• our brains are wired for survival and reproduction— not to do knowledge work day in and day out.
• We’re also more likely to focus on anything that’s pleasurable or threatening.
• The next time you meditate (if you’ve begun to do so), pay attention to how your mind is naturally drawn to
the threats, pleasures, and novel ideas floating in your head.
• Our mind is wired to not only perceive but also remember threats, like that one negative email that we can’t
forget.
• Neurologically speaking, it’s impossible to both focus on something and reflect on that thing at the same
time.
• There are two ways your mind wanders: unintentionally and intentionally. Unintentional wandering takes
place without your awareness, when you don’t choose to enter into the mode. This is where I draw the line
between mind wandering and scatterfocus. Scatterfocus is always intentional.
• the key to practicing habitual scatterfocus is to frequently check what thoughts and ideas are in your
attentional space.
• Deliberately managing your attention also leads you to remember more.
• the more information you gather and remember when focused, the better you are at constructing ideas and
future events in scatterfocus mode.
• you are what you choose to focus on.

Boredom is the feeling we experience as we transition into a lower level of stimulation

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 THE LESS STIMULATED YOU ARE, THE MORE DEEPLY YOU CAN THINK

There are many signs that indicate you’re running low on energy and should recharge your attention by
deliberately entering scatterfocus mode:

1. Switching often among tasks and being unable to sustain focus on one thing
2. Losing your grip on your intentions and working in a more reactive way
3. Getting tasks done at a noticeably slower rate (e.g., reading the same important email several times to
comprehend it)
4. Opting to do less important, more mindless work— like checking email, social media, etc.

Focus becomes effortless when you’re working on a task that’s intrinsically motivating

Research on the value of breaks points to two simple rules:

1. Take a break at least every ninety minutes.

The best time to take a break is before you need to.

For Every Hour of Sleep You Miss, You Lose Two Hours of Productivity the Next Day.

We’re wired to remember what we’re in the middle of more than what we’ve completed.

CONNECTING EVEN MORE DOTS

1. Scatter your attention in a richer environment. (A rich environment is one where you’re constantly
encountering new people, ideas, and sights.)
2. Write out the problems you’re trying to crack.
3. Sleep on a problem.
4. Step back
5. Intentionally leave tasks unfinished.
6. Consume more valuable dots.

• This is how intuition works: it’s the process of acting on information we remember but don’t consciously
retrieve.
• We are what we pay attention to
• “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.”
• Ten thousand hours is enough time to build a rich constellation of dots around a certain topic or skill.
• Abraham Lincoln, who said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening
the axe.”
• a positive mood expands the size of your attentional space; meaning isn’t something we try to find— it’s
something we make an effort to notice.
• our attention is the most powerful tool at your disposal to live and work with greater productivity, creativity,
and purpose.

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