Why I wanted to read this book
I’ve noticed a development in myself that concerns me: my ability to focus has decreased a lot. When I sit down to do something that requires focus, I do the thing for 1 minute and before I know it I find myself scrolling through social media, checking whether I have any text messages, checking email, getting up to grab some more tea, or spontaneously find something to clean. For every minute that I do something, I spend 5 minutes distracting myself. It drives me nuts.
I took several measures to eliminate external distractions: I switched off all notifications on my phone, kept my phone in a different room whenever I really needed to focus deeply, I never keep the Outlook window open on my computer anymore, and I set my Skype status to Do Not Disturb. Then, I set a Pomodoro timer for 10 minutes (5 minutes on really bad days) to motivate myself to get started. After doing all this, I was confident I would get real work done.
I should've known better. While the reflex to check for messages or emails was obstructed, I was still distracted all the time. How?? Turns out, my mind is enemy #1, even more than external cues. You can lock me up in an isolation cell and still I wouldn’t get to work. Why? Because the mind cannot be locked up. It is always able to escape and wander, there is no physical barrier that can contain it.
I picked up this book to better understand how the mind works and how I can control it more to increase my focus.
Summary
You’d never tell by the title of the book, but according to Chris Bailey there are two types of focus: Hyperfocus and Scatterfocus. Hyperfocus is, as you might guess, a state of deep concentration and is particularly helpful when you need to do something that is important and requires a significant mental energy. On the other hand, in Scatterfocus you let your mind go wherever it wants to go. Your mind automatically enters scatterfocus mode when you are bored or doing a simple, habitual task. You might also notice that all Eureka-moments occur in scatterfocus mode (for me, that is definitely the case).
These two types of focus complement and counterbalance each other. You need hyperfocus to solve analytical and complex problems, while scatterfocus allows for creative thinking and connecting dots. Hyperfocus costs energy, scatterfocus replenishes.
How I am applying this book in my own life
It’s a no-brainer that you don't have unlimited hyperfocus, but this book had to remind me of that fact regardless, and it made me realize that I needed to spend my hyperfocus energy wisely, only on meaningful activities. The book provided a nice exercise to assess and review everything I spend time on, and determine what deserves hyperfocus energy and what does not. This is my grid:
Essentially, the top row contains the activities I need to spend the most of my time on. In practice, this means that I make sure to plan these activities in my calendar. The distracting activities I might indulge in when I have a spare minute, am waiting on something, or have a bad day, but even then I try to limit these activites and rather allow my mind to go into Scatterfocus mode.
I can highly recommend doing this for your activities. It's not a difficult exercise because deep down you already know what is productive and fun / not fun, but it helps to see it on a chart and to be reminded of what the best use is of your time. It also helps to take a step back and assess or re-prioritize your current time spend.
The second effect of this book is that I stopped criticizing myself whenever I noticed my mind was off track again. Instead, I started to pay attention to when my mind wanders and where it wanders to. Several observations:
After a while of observing my thoughts in moments where I needed my mind to be still, I came up with the idea to also observe my mind’s favorite places to go whenever it was OK for my mind to go wherever it liked to go. So, I paid more attention to my thoughts whenever I was cooking, cleaning, going on walks, brushing my teeth, watching Netflix, etc. I noticed that most of the time my mind would revisit past conversations and go over an interesting thing that someone said to me that day, or replay something my conversation partner and I laughed about, or it would replay something stupid I said or did (I hate it when my mind goes there!). The latter can trigger quite a spiral of self-doubt, but I am getting better at recognizing when I’m in the spiral and stopping it.
Sometimes, out of the blue my mind can conjure up an idea for new Productivithee content as a result of connecting some dots that were floating around in the back of my brain. I love those moments, and I think this is a typical Scatterfocus result.
All in all, I am happy I read this book. Learning about Scatterfocus was eye-opening and I will definitely allow more space for it, as I have already experienced first-hand what its value is. In a sense, this book has given me ‘permission' to not be in productive mode all the time becuase of the benefits of letting your mind go free. Another great effect of reading this book is that I live more ‘consciously’. I am more aware of what I am doing and thinking, and even what I am feeling. My thoughts spiral easily, and because I am more aware of what I am thinking I can identify the underlying emotion that is causing the spiral. Then, when I deal with that emotion, the spiralling stops and my mind is clear again.
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