The key ideas

Hyperfocus. How to Manage Your Attention in a World of Distraction

Chris Bailey, 2018

Why does your main task remain untouched after a day full of activity? Chris Bailey shows that the problem is neither laziness nor a shortage of hours, but how we use our attention. You will learn how much your mind can really hold, the four categories all tasks fall into, and how to deliberately switch between two mental modes: deep concentration and intentional mind wandering.

Who it is for

For anyone who is busy all day but cannot remember what they accomplished by evening. And for anyone who wants both to finish things and to come up with good ideas.

Being busier does not necessarily mean we are getting more done.

Forty seconds until the next tab

Imagine an ordinary morning at your computer. You open a report, write the first line, and notice a new email icon. You reply, check the work chat, then glance at the news for a minute. Half an hour later, the report is still on its first line, yet you feel as though you have been working nonstop all morning.

Canadian author Chris Bailey has spent years experimenting with his own productivity. In this book, he cites researcher Gloria Mark’s findings: people working at computers spend an average of only about forty seconds on one activity before someone interrupts them or they distract themselves.

Bailey’s central idea is simple. Results depend not on how many hours you spend working, but on where your attention goes and how much of it remains available. According to Bailey, the brain has two modes you can control. Hyperfocus means complete immersion in one chosen task. Scatterfocus means intentional mind wandering that produces plans and ideas. Usually, both modes switch on by themselves, haphazardly. Bailey teaches you to choose when to use them. The first half of the book explores hyperfocus, the second scatterfocus, and together they form one system.

Ahead: how much your mind can really hold, the four categories all tasks fall into, why one precise intention is more reliable than willpower, how to deal with distractions before work begins, and how to turn mind wandering into a source of ideas. This book is about spending your attention on what truly matters rather than working more. Let us start with the place where all this happens.

Your mind holds less than you think

Bailey calls the book’s central concept attentional space. It is the part of your mind that holds everything you are aware of right now: the task in front of you, a thought about an unsent email, a fragment of conversation at the next desk. Psychologists have a related concept called working memory. Bailey draws on research suggesting it can hold an average of about four things at once.

Imagine a small writing desk. There is room for a laptop, a cup, and a couple of sheets of paper. Put a stack of magazines on top, and something is bound to fall on the floor. Attention works the same way: every new thing takes up space, and when the desk is overloaded, the most important thing suffers first. That is why an hour of jumping between email and chats leaves your head feeling heavy, even though you have accomplished nothing substantial.

But not everything takes up the same amount of room. Familiar activities use almost none: you can walk and talk, or wash dishes while listening to a podcast. Bailey explains that a habit needs attention mainly when it starts, then runs by itself on autopilot. Two demanding activities, however, will not fit together. Answer an important email during a call, and you will do both badly.

Autopilot is useful as long as it takes us where we want to go. The trouble, Bailey argues, is that we spend far more of our day on it than we realize. We respond to everything that appears on the screen and rarely notice what is occupying our minds.

So the book’s first skill is noticing. Bailey calls it meta-awareness: the ability to step back from your thoughts occasionally and ask what is occupying your attentional space right now. He suggests a simple technique: ask yourself this question every hour, prompted by a timer on your phone or watch. If your mind contains something other than what you chose, calmly bring your attention back to the task, without reproaching yourself.

This takes a few seconds. Yet in those seconds, control passes from autopilot back to you. The more often you check in, the sooner you notice that your attention has drifted, and the less time you waste.

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About the author

Chris Bailey is a Canadian author who writes about productivity. After graduating from university, he spent a year experimenting with his own productivity, from 90-hour workweeks to three months of using his phone for no more than an hour a day. He described these experiments in The Productivity Project.

All books by this author: Chris Bailey

Terms from the book

  • Podcast
  • Mark
  • Gollwitzer
  • meditation
  • Autopilot
  • Hyperfocus
  • Allen
  • Scatterfocus: The author’s term, translated into Russian as a word meaning “defocusing”. A mode in which you deliberately let your thoughts wander freely to make plans, find ideas, and rest.
  • Attentional space: The author’s concept for the amount you can hold in conscious awareness at any one moment. Bailey links it to working memory.
  • Working memory: A psychological concept: the short-term store in which we hold and manipulate information while working with it. Its capacity is small.
  • Meta-awareness: The ability to notice what you are thinking about right now and observe your own thoughts as if from outside.
  • Necessary work: One quadrant in the author’s chart. Useful but unattractive tasks that cannot be avoided.
  • Purposeful work: One quadrant in the author’s chart. Useful and attractive tasks that offer the greatest return.
  • Unnecessary work: One quadrant in the author’s chart. Tasks that offer neither value nor enjoyment, often used to put off something difficult.
  • Distracting work: One quadrant in the author’s chart. Pleasant but unhelpful activities, such as social media feeds or endlessly checking email.
  • Brandstätter: Veronika Brandstätter, a psychologist who coauthored a 1997 study on how precise plans help people achieve their goals.
  • Rule of 3: The author’s technique: choose three main tasks each morning and three main goals at the start of each week.
  • Capture mode: One of Bailey’s three ways to practice scatterfocus: think freely and write down everything that comes to mind.
  • Problem-crunching mode: One of Bailey’s three ways to practice scatterfocus: keep one problem in mind and let your thoughts wander freely around it.
  • Habitual mode: One of Bailey’s three ways to practice scatterfocus: do a simple, familiar activity and let your mind wander. He considers it the most fruitful.

All terms

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