Hyperfocus

by Chris Bailey

  So how exactly do you expand the size of your attentional space?

  There are many “brain training” apps and websites that promise to build memory and attention. Simply put, most of their claims are dubious—in laboratory studies, they simply don’t hold water. While a few brain-training programs work in the short term and help you remember a bit more and problem-solve a bit better, their impact ends there. You have to stick with them for several hours a week in order for them to continue working, and as soon as you stop, you lose the gains you’ve made. One study measured the effectiveness of these programs across a sample size of 11,430 participants. It found “no evidence” that the apps worked, even when the tasks they measured were the ones they were designed to improve!

  There is, however, one practice that has been proven in study after study to increase working memory capacity: meditation.

  Meditation gets a bad rap and often conjures images of a monk meditating in a cave. In practice it’s actually quite simple. 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.

  In breathing meditation (the most common form, and the one I’ve personally practiced for about a decade), you notice the characteristics of your breath: how deeply it ebbs and flows, its temperature, where it is most prominent in your body, how your in-breath transitions to your out-breath, and so on. Since observing your breath doesn’t consume your full attention, your mind will wander constantly—which is somewhat the point. 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 is simple—sit somewhere with your eyes closed and pay attention to your breath. It’s natural to feel as if you’re doing it wrong, especially at first, but don’t overthink it. The effects of this simple practice are actually profound. One study discovered that when participants developed a meditation practice, not only did their minds wander less, but they could also focus for longer before that happened—two measures of the quality of attention. This study introduced meditation to students studying for the GRE—a standardized graduate admissions test in the United States. When it came time for them to take the test, their scores rose an average of 16 percent! 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. One review of the literature on the subject described meditation’s benefits most succinctly, calling it “the most validated technique for minimizing the disruptive effects of mind wandering.”

  My favorite study of meditation measured how much participants’ working memory capacity increased when they had an active meditation practice. The researchers guided participants through a forty-five-minute meditation exercise twice a week and encouraged them to meditate at home. A few weeks later they discovered something incredible in the working memory capacity of everyone who meditated: it increased by an average of more than 30 percent. That was significantly more than that of two other groups of subjects in the study, one of which practiced yoga for several weeks. This effect was also observed after a period of just a few weeks.

  To begin meditating requires just a few minutes each day. Start by determining your resistance level, as you do before hyperfocusing on a task. Then sit in a chair, in a comfortable but upright posture so the disks of your spine are stacked one on top of another. Notice the qualities of your breath and refocus on them whenever your mind wanders. I highly recommend using an app to get started—I like Headspace and Insight Timer, which both feature guided meditations to help you get started. 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. Some days I can spare only a minute or two, which is sufficient as long as I keep faithful to a routine. When I began a decade ago, I did only five-minute sessions, and since then have slowly built to thirty minutes. I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

  When you practice being with your breath, you practice being with your life. But meditation is not the only tool in this tool kit. Practicing mindfulness is another proven way to increase the size of your attentional space. It’s similar to meditation but a little less intimidating.

  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.

  Here’s a statement that might sound strange: you’ve never really taken a shower. While you might stand there while the water washes over you, your mind is usually elsewhere—at the office, running through your daily checklist, thinking about what you need to buy for dinner, or brainstorming about a problem you’re facing at work. While a small part of it runs through the habit sequence of taking a shower, your mind isn’t with you, present with what you’re experiencing. A mindful shower is one in which you focus on the sights, sounds, and sensations of the present, which enables you to train your brain to better focus on what’s in front of you.

  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. Anchor your attention to the circumstances of the present moment—notice the smell, taste, and feeling of a cup of coffee; the momentum shifts in your body as you walk from one room in the office to another; or the temperature and sensations of taking a shower. You can set a timer or not—simply be with the circumstances of the present moment and notice as much as you can about what you’re seeing, hearing, and feeling. 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.

  Practices like meditation and mindfulness are also powerful because they train you to practice holding a single intention in your mind for a given period of time. During your meditation, you sit with the intention of being with your breath until your timer goes off. The same is true when you practice mindfulness: until the coffee cup is empty (or half full), your shower is finished, or you’re done walking to where you intend to go, you focus on what you’re doing then and there. When you keep a single intention in mind, you’re able to live and work more intentionally for the rest of the day too. And because both meditation and mindfulness increase the size of your attentional space, both practices make you more likely to maintain intentions.

  As if these benefits weren’t enough, meditation and mindfulness also help you step back from your thoughts. This makes it infinitely easier to check what’s occupying your attentional space. The more you notice what’s grasped your attention, the more quickly you’ll be able to redirect it to your
intention. With enough awareness, you might even notice your mind has wandered to somewhere productive and you want to continue that train of thought. For example, a higher working memory capacity means your mind is more likely to make plans and set intentions for the future. With this extra awareness, you gain the power to notice stray objects of attention at the edges of your attentional space, such as when you’re seeking external stimulation or about to fall victim to a seductive distraction.

  The research is clear: mindfulness and meditation improve virtually every aspect of how you manage your attention.

  Every once in a while, I like to travel to a local Buddhist monastery to join a public Saturday-afternoon meditation. This usually consists of a potluck and an hourlong meditation session, followed by a talk given by one of the monks. During one of my visits, a monk spoke about how for several weeks during his meditation practice he focused solely on the sensation his breath made on the tip of his nose—an impossibly small object of attention. I tried doing the same during an extended two-hour meditation practice the next day, and my mind has never wandered so much. With an object of attention that small, it’s no surprise.

  But the following Monday morning, I focused more deeply on my work than I had in weeks. I wrote several thousand words in just a few hours, brainstormed three talks, and had time left over to clear my email inboxes. The positive effects lingered beyond that day, as I was able to focus better throughout the week. The quality of attention is so integral to productivity that increasing it even slightly makes a remarkable difference in how much we accomplish.

  Luckily, you don’t have to spend hours focusing on the tip of your nose to experience the remarkable benefits of mindfulness and meditation. Even only a few minutes a day will help immensely. 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. While both will consume some of your time, you’ll make that time back, and then some, in how much more clearly, deeply, and deliberately you’ll think and focus.

  HYPERFOCUS AT HOME

  Almost every idea in this book will help you not only at work but at home too. As I’ve put these ideas into practice, I’ve noticed some remarkable benefits in my personal life.

  Chances are you were in hyperfocus mode during your last highly productive work period. You were likely in a similar state the last time you felt happiest and energized at home. You were probably focused on just one thing—whether that was carrying on a meaningful conversation with a loved one, planting a garden, playing cards with a relative, or relaxing with a book on the beach. The one thing you were doing consumed your full attentional space. Because of this, you likely didn’t have many surrounding distractions—your work phone may have been in the other room, and you may have made a commitment to disconnect for the weekend. Your family may have agreed to a phone-free dinner. You were probably also in a more relaxed state and, because of this, didn’t seek novel stimuli in your environment. You could focus with relative ease on what you were doing.

  “Hyperfocus” was the best term I could come up with to describe this state of being totally focused on one thing, though it does have the disadvantage of sounding dauntingly intense. In practice, hyperfocus is actually quite relaxed, unless you’re on a deadline or are working at or above capacity, so your work doesn’t have the luxury of expanding to fit an amount of time. When you hyperfocus, you’re surrounded by very few novel objects of attention, and what you’re doing fills your attentional space quite naturally. This same idea holds true at home, and we experience the same benefits of hyperfocus there. We remember more of what we’re doing, and our experiences become more meaningful as a result. We spend more time in the moment and get things done more quickly and with less effort. I like to do this by setting three personal daily intentions in addition to my three work goals, even if one happens to be binge-watching a show on Netflix.

  One area I’ve noticed that particularly benefits from hyperfocus is conversations. The secret to deep, meaningful conversations is simple: bring your complete attention to the person you’re speaking with. You can do this in many ways, such as by allowing someone to finish talking before you start (a simple but highly underutilized technique). Wait until you hear the period at the end of their sentence before you think about what you’ll say next. I’m convinced that most people have a sixth sense and can tell when you’re truly paying attention to them. It’s a remarkable thing when you spend not just quality time with someone but quality attention as well.

  Hyperfocus lets me dive deeper into my personal relationships, in conversation and other aspects. I’m convinced that love is nothing more than sharing quality attention with someone. As David Augsburger, a Baptist minister and author, has put it: “Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.”

  When we’re hyperfocusing on an activity at home—whether it’s playing an instrument, walking the dog, or making dinner for the family—disabling the pointless, novel distractions and focusing completely on what we’re doing means we are purposefully disengaging from our work. This practice gets easier with time. I’ve devoted an entire later chapter of this book to recharging hyperfocus—we can do this by periodically stepping back from our work to let our mind rest, wander, and take on less challenging tasks. Spending our time at home more purposefully also enables us to feel recharged.

  Whether at work or at home, the quality of your attention determines the quality of your life. At work, the more attention you give to what’s in front of you, the more productive you become. At home, the more attention you devote to what’s in front of you, the more meaningful your life becomes.

  FOUR (MORE) WAYS TO BATTLE YOUR RESISTANCE TO HYPERFOCUS

  This chapter covers a number of tactics that will help you develop an even stronger hyperfocus habit: making your work more challenging, taking on more projects at work and at home, increasing the size of your attentional space, practicing hyperfocus in all areas of life, and choosing exactly when to hyperfocus. Let’s end with one final, important concept that will help you to solidify a hyperfocus ritual in your work and life: how to battle your inevitable resistance to the mode.

  Assuming you’ve already given hyperfocus a try, even if only for ten minutes, you may have felt what I did at first: a mental resistance to focusing on just one thing. This was probably a mixture of restlessness, anxiousness, and succumbing to novel distractions. You likely found yourself craving these distractions more than usual in the initial stage of entering the hyperfocused state.

  This resistance we feel toward complex and productive tasks isn’t distributed evenly across working time—it’s usually concentrated at the beginning of when we start these tasks:

  For example, while it might take weeks to summon the energy and stamina needed to clean the garage or bedroom closet, once we do it for even just a minute, we could keep going for hours. The same is true for working out—after we overcome our resistance to getting started, we can go on with the rest of our workout. Starting provides enough momentum to carry out our intentions.

  This is true of our most complex tasks as well, and is one of the many reasons we’ll work on a task for only forty seconds before falling victim to distractions. We feel the most resistance at the very start and search instead for more attractive alternatives. When we begin a new task, working on it for at least one minute with purposeful attention and limited distractions is critical. Here are my four favorite strategies for battling this initial resistance:

  Shrink your desired hyperfocus period until you no longer feel resistance to the ritual. Minimize the amount of time you’ll dedicate to focusing on one task until you no longer feel mental resistance to it. Even setting a mental deadline of five minutes will likely be enough to get you started.

  Notice when you “don’t have ti
me” for something. You always have time—you just spend it on other things. When you find yourself saying this familiar statement, try doing a task swap. For example: if you “don’t have the time” to catch up with a friend over coffee, ask yourself whether you’d have an equal amount of time to watch the football game or surf Facebook. 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. If the task swap shows you do have the time, chances are this is just your resistance talking.

  Continually practice hyperfocus. Incorporate at least one hyperfocus interval each day. You’ll experience less resistance as you get accustomed to working with fewer distractions and appreciate how productive you’ve become.

  Recharge! Hyperfocus can be oddly energizing: you spend less energy regulating your behavior when you don’t have to continually resist distractions and push yourself to focus on what’s important. That said, resisting the ritual can also be a sign you need to recharge.

  THE POWER OF HYPERFOCUS