Ever spend an entire day "working" only to find you didn't actually get any work done? This might help explain why
By Clay Skipper, GQ
We don't need an expert to tell us that, increasingly, the world is a distracting place. Luckily, Chris Bailey's new book Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction doesn't stop there. Instead, it's a book about productivity that, rather ironically, takes aim at the cult of productivity: we're so worried about being busy these days that we rarely take the time to differentiate "being busy" from "actually working." It's not browsing Instagram you need to worry about; it's checking your work email every ten minutes and thinking that makes you a good employee when you have an entire to do list’s worth of other tasks to knock out. (It doesn't help that, according to Parkinson's Law, work expands to fill all of the time available for its completion, meaning that even if you think you have a lot of time before your deadline, you'll find ways to make the work extend until the last possible second.) So we called up Bailey to ask how we could reclaim our attention - not just to get more done, but to get more done of what we actually need to be doing.
We don't need an expert to tell us that, increasingly, the world is a distracting place. Luckily, Chris Bailey's new book Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction doesn't stop there. Instead, it's a book about productivity that, rather ironically, takes aim at the cult of productivity: we're so worried about being busy these days that we rarely take the time to differentiate "being busy" from "actually working." It's not browsing Instagram you need to worry about; it's checking your work email every ten minutes and thinking that makes you a good employee when you have an entire to do list’s worth of other tasks to knock out. (It doesn't help that, according to Parkinson's Law, work expands to fill all of the time available for its completion, meaning that even if you think you have a lot of time before your deadline, you'll find ways to make the work extend until the last possible second.) So we called up Bailey to ask how we could reclaim our attention - not just to get more done, but to get more done of what we actually need to be doing.
GQ: Can you unpack the role that intention plays when it comes to attention?
Chris Bailey: We tend to look at how busy we are as a proxy for our productivity... People think productivity’s about doing more, more, more, faster, faster, faster. But it's really about doing the right things and doing those things deliberately and with intention. Not all things on our plate are created equal. There are some tasks through which we accomplish 10 times much as doing anything else. For example, email is an essential part of my work. But writing an article that hundreds of thousands or millions of people read is a lot more consequential than filtering email that we get from Amazon that affects only one person (me). We need to become more deliberate or else we're just gonna focus on what's latest and loudest.
Our attention is drawn like a magnet to anything that's pleasurable, that we find threatening, and that we find novel. And so there's even a novelty bias embedded within prefrontal cortex: we get rewarded with a hit of dopamine for each new thing we focus on. Our mind rewards us for falling into this cycle of distraction, and for paying attention to the unimportant things on our plate.
The most vital things in our work are rarely the most pleasurable, threatening, or novel. And that's the problem with our attention. Deadlines have a way of making our work a lot more threatening, which makes us focus on it. But when our work is more freeform - when we have, realistically, three or four hours of real work to do in an eight hour day - that's when we start to gravitate to the things that are attractive in the moment that don't lead us to accomplish as much.
A writer I really like on this stuff is Tim Urban, and he has an incredible post about procrastination. He talks about how the rational part of our brain is always fighting with the instant gratification part, and the instant gratification part always wins.
One of my favourite studies on procrastination was conducted by Tim Pitchell out of the Carlton University. He found that there are certain triggers that a task can have that make us more likely to put it off. Those are when a task is boring, frustrating, difficult, lacks personal meaning, lacks intrinsic reward - so it's not rewarding to do - ambiguous, and unstructured.
Writing is a great example of this: it's so rewarding, but it's so often ambiguous, unstructured, tedious, and difficult. So we procrastinate it. We pay attention to something that's pleasurable, threatening or novel instead. Once you start to deconstruct your attention, you realise, it's not this ambiguous idea: there are things that trigger us to focus [and] there are things that trigger us to resist paying attention to something.
Another problem: the walls guarding out attention are more porous than ever, right? Email is especially pernicious. That is just other people hijacking your attention at no cost to them, but at a cost to you.
The fascinating thing about email is: it takes up little of our time - we maybe spend an hour or two on email a day - but it takes up a disproportionate amount of our attention. And so the average worker checks their email 88 times over the course of the day. There's a cost to this constant switching that I think people don't really realise. And it’s the reason multi-tasking doesn't work: we can't seamlessly switch from doing one thing to doing another thing. Our mind isn't capable of that. There's a certain attentional residue left over from what we were just focusing on before.
Maybe right before we were doing this interview, we had a really harsh meeting with our boss. We won't be able to then direct our attention completely to this conversation, because there will be that residue. But we experience this on a moment-by-moment basis, too. When we switch to email, this has been shown to make our work take about 50% longer.
Ask yourself: are you just checking email because it's stimulating, or because you're actually gonna act upon what you've received? Check for new messages only if you have the time, the attention, and the energy to deal with whatever come in. One of my favourite tactics is an email sprint. At the top of the hour, set a timer for 15 or 20 minutes, and blow through as many emails as you possibly can. You still have 45(ish) minutes outside of that time to focus on what's more meaningful and what's more productive.
If you were to give a crash course in how to hyperfocus, what are three practices we can employ that'll have a tangible benefit right off the bat?
Today, set three intentions. Before you connect to email, before you turn on your computer for the day, really think about the three things you'll want to have accomplished. And then reflect on them at the end of the day.
Secondly, notice what you pay attention to when you're low on energy. So when you're kind of burnt out a little bit, what apps do you fire up? What websites do you visit mindlessly, out of habit, that just stimulate you and prevent you from really resting? [Knowing those is] a way by which we can shut off autopilot.
Third: when you're about to work on something that you’re likely to procrastinate - that is boring, frustrating, difficult, ambiguous, unstructured - eliminate any object of attention that you will find more attractive than the work that you really want to be doing. Being distracted isn't our fault. Our mind is simply wired for distraction, because it pays attention to anything that is pleasurable or threatening or novel. And so we need to eliminate these things from our environment ahead of time. Leave your phone in another room, or put it into do not disturb mode, if you're working on something that requires a deep level of focus that you find aversive.
Our attention is drawn like a magnet to anything that's pleasurable, that we find threatening, and that we find novel. And so there's even a novelty bias embedded within prefrontal cortex: we get rewarded with a hit of dopamine for each new thing we focus on. Our mind rewards us for falling into this cycle of distraction, and for paying attention to the unimportant things on our plate.
The most vital things in our work are rarely the most pleasurable, threatening, or novel. And that's the problem with our attention. Deadlines have a way of making our work a lot more threatening, which makes us focus on it. But when our work is more freeform - when we have, realistically, three or four hours of real work to do in an eight hour day - that's when we start to gravitate to the things that are attractive in the moment that don't lead us to accomplish as much.
A writer I really like on this stuff is Tim Urban, and he has an incredible post about procrastination. He talks about how the rational part of our brain is always fighting with the instant gratification part, and the instant gratification part always wins.
One of my favourite studies on procrastination was conducted by Tim Pitchell out of the Carlton University. He found that there are certain triggers that a task can have that make us more likely to put it off. Those are when a task is boring, frustrating, difficult, lacks personal meaning, lacks intrinsic reward - so it's not rewarding to do - ambiguous, and unstructured.
Writing is a great example of this: it's so rewarding, but it's so often ambiguous, unstructured, tedious, and difficult. So we procrastinate it. We pay attention to something that's pleasurable, threatening or novel instead. Once you start to deconstruct your attention, you realise, it's not this ambiguous idea: there are things that trigger us to focus [and] there are things that trigger us to resist paying attention to something.
Another problem: the walls guarding out attention are more porous than ever, right? Email is especially pernicious. That is just other people hijacking your attention at no cost to them, but at a cost to you.
The fascinating thing about email is: it takes up little of our time - we maybe spend an hour or two on email a day - but it takes up a disproportionate amount of our attention. And so the average worker checks their email 88 times over the course of the day. There's a cost to this constant switching that I think people don't really realise. And it’s the reason multi-tasking doesn't work: we can't seamlessly switch from doing one thing to doing another thing. Our mind isn't capable of that. There's a certain attentional residue left over from what we were just focusing on before.
Maybe right before we were doing this interview, we had a really harsh meeting with our boss. We won't be able to then direct our attention completely to this conversation, because there will be that residue. But we experience this on a moment-by-moment basis, too. When we switch to email, this has been shown to make our work take about 50% longer.
Ask yourself: are you just checking email because it's stimulating, or because you're actually gonna act upon what you've received? Check for new messages only if you have the time, the attention, and the energy to deal with whatever come in. One of my favourite tactics is an email sprint. At the top of the hour, set a timer for 15 or 20 minutes, and blow through as many emails as you possibly can. You still have 45(ish) minutes outside of that time to focus on what's more meaningful and what's more productive.
If you were to give a crash course in how to hyperfocus, what are three practices we can employ that'll have a tangible benefit right off the bat?
Today, set three intentions. Before you connect to email, before you turn on your computer for the day, really think about the three things you'll want to have accomplished. And then reflect on them at the end of the day.
Secondly, notice what you pay attention to when you're low on energy. So when you're kind of burnt out a little bit, what apps do you fire up? What websites do you visit mindlessly, out of habit, that just stimulate you and prevent you from really resting? [Knowing those is] a way by which we can shut off autopilot.
Third: when you're about to work on something that you’re likely to procrastinate - that is boring, frustrating, difficult, ambiguous, unstructured - eliminate any object of attention that you will find more attractive than the work that you really want to be doing. Being distracted isn't our fault. Our mind is simply wired for distraction, because it pays attention to anything that is pleasurable or threatening or novel. And so we need to eliminate these things from our environment ahead of time. Leave your phone in another room, or put it into do not disturb mode, if you're working on something that requires a deep level of focus that you find aversive.
Why is “I don't have time” a weak excuse?
When we say we don't have time for something, we're really just saying that something's not important to us. You hear people say, “I don't have time to read this book.” But then they have time to check email, or read the news, or go on social media for a few hours. What we really mean when we say we don't have time for something is that we don't have the attention or patience for it. You have time for everything. It's just that you choose to do other things.
That relates to one of the more interesting revelations in the book: it's not necessarily about eliminating distractions - because that's impossible - but about having this sort of meta-awareness about ourselves, to know that we are distracted.
It's like being one step removed from your attention. That just means observing what you're thinking and feeling - something we don't do enough of when the world tempts us to work on autopilot mode. We don't notice what's on our mind. That's all mindfulness is: noticing what our mind is full of.
When our mind does wander, why is it that it so frequently goes to the worst things - like, “Oh man, why did I say that awkward thing to my boss?” As opposed to wandering to a good memory from yesterday?
This goes back to the magnets of our attention, anything that's pleasurable, threatening, or novel. This has served us well in our evolution: instead of focusing on building a fire, we noticed the saber tooth tiger that was encroaching. And then we paid attention to that novel threat, we dealt with it, and we survived to live another day and build another fire. But these days, the nearest tigers are at the zoo. So when we turn our attention inward, we so often look for the threatening things in our mind.
We also fantasise a lot, when we turn our attention inward. If you think about when your best ideas strike you, they're rarely when you're focused on something. They're when your mind is wandering when you're going for a walk through nature. They're when your mind is wandering on your way to a meeting, and your phone isn't clamouring for your attention. It's in the moments between things that we are able to reflect. We're not able to focus and reflect at the same time. If you want to unearth more ideas and if you want more rest, I think you need to leave some space between the things that you do.
One of my favourite other topics of study is traffic flow. And if you look at what allows traffic to continue moving forward, it's not how fast the cars are moving, but rather how much space exists between the cars. And I think our work is the exact same way, where it's in these spots in between what we're doing that we get to reflect and recharge and plan and ideate and think about our goals.
That relates to one of the more interesting revelations in the book: it's not necessarily about eliminating distractions - because that's impossible - but about having this sort of meta-awareness about ourselves, to know that we are distracted.
It's like being one step removed from your attention. That just means observing what you're thinking and feeling - something we don't do enough of when the world tempts us to work on autopilot mode. We don't notice what's on our mind. That's all mindfulness is: noticing what our mind is full of.
When our mind does wander, why is it that it so frequently goes to the worst things - like, “Oh man, why did I say that awkward thing to my boss?” As opposed to wandering to a good memory from yesterday?
This goes back to the magnets of our attention, anything that's pleasurable, threatening, or novel. This has served us well in our evolution: instead of focusing on building a fire, we noticed the saber tooth tiger that was encroaching. And then we paid attention to that novel threat, we dealt with it, and we survived to live another day and build another fire. But these days, the nearest tigers are at the zoo. So when we turn our attention inward, we so often look for the threatening things in our mind.
We also fantasise a lot, when we turn our attention inward. If you think about when your best ideas strike you, they're rarely when you're focused on something. They're when your mind is wandering when you're going for a walk through nature. They're when your mind is wandering on your way to a meeting, and your phone isn't clamouring for your attention. It's in the moments between things that we are able to reflect. We're not able to focus and reflect at the same time. If you want to unearth more ideas and if you want more rest, I think you need to leave some space between the things that you do.
One of my favourite other topics of study is traffic flow. And if you look at what allows traffic to continue moving forward, it's not how fast the cars are moving, but rather how much space exists between the cars. And I think our work is the exact same way, where it's in these spots in between what we're doing that we get to reflect and recharge and plan and ideate and think about our goals.
So much of this is impulse control, right?
That's everything right there. Intention is what makes us human. And so when we're able to create that space between an impulse and our action, then we're just levelling up our humanity in a way.
I get the sense that people know they're more distracted and less productive than they ever have been before. And yet we aren't really proactive about doing anything about that.
If there's one thing that I realised over the course of writing this book, it's that the state of our attention determines the state of our lives. And so if we're distracted in each moment - and that leads us to feel overwhelmed - those moments accumulate day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, to create a life that feels distracted and overwhelmed. The real reason to [manage your attention well] is to increase the quality of our lives.
We all know on some level just how distracted we are. But because we're productive enough, we maintain that level of distraction. But I think once you internalise the idea that this level of distraction goes beyond our productivity - and it extends to every part of our lives - you begin to realise the costs of not managing your attention deliberately, and how much meaning you're leaving on the table when you don't do so.
Some people take a shower every morning, but they haven't actually taken a shower in years, because their mind is everywhere but the shower. What use is a life that we don't remember and experience? If you think back, to the most meaningful experience you've ever had, you probably weren't multitasking on five or six things at once. You remember far less and it's less meaningful as a result.
A lot of us don't really show up anymore. Our mind is anywhere except where we are. People can tell when you're there. Love is really no different than sharing quality attention with somebody. You can show up in person without showing up mentally. I think that's something that we all need to take to heart.
I get the sense that people know they're more distracted and less productive than they ever have been before. And yet we aren't really proactive about doing anything about that.
If there's one thing that I realised over the course of writing this book, it's that the state of our attention determines the state of our lives. And so if we're distracted in each moment - and that leads us to feel overwhelmed - those moments accumulate day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, to create a life that feels distracted and overwhelmed. The real reason to [manage your attention well] is to increase the quality of our lives.
We all know on some level just how distracted we are. But because we're productive enough, we maintain that level of distraction. But I think once you internalise the idea that this level of distraction goes beyond our productivity - and it extends to every part of our lives - you begin to realise the costs of not managing your attention deliberately, and how much meaning you're leaving on the table when you don't do so.
Some people take a shower every morning, but they haven't actually taken a shower in years, because their mind is everywhere but the shower. What use is a life that we don't remember and experience? If you think back, to the most meaningful experience you've ever had, you probably weren't multitasking on five or six things at once. You remember far less and it's less meaningful as a result.
A lot of us don't really show up anymore. Our mind is anywhere except where we are. People can tell when you're there. Love is really no different than sharing quality attention with somebody. You can show up in person without showing up mentally. I think that's something that we all need to take to heart.
