Alessandra is reading…

Hyperfocus: How to be More Productive in a World of Distraction by Chris Bailey

Bailey defines hyperfocus as focusing deeply, giving 100% of one’s attention, on one thing at a time. Aside from giving skills to increase one’s hyperfocus abilities, Bailey also defines scatterfocus, allowing one’s mind to wander, and gives the skills to help the reader be more creative and productive. 

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What I personally liked and benefited from

Meditation can be used to increase attentional space (love that he adds this). I feel that this is very true and beneficial – meditation helped me a lot during grad school.

I liked Dale Partridge giving his team with lamps and squirt guns to encourage focus when he was the CEO of Sevenly. Employees would turn the lamps on whenever they wanted to focus without interruptions and if a coworker interrupted them, they got to shoot the coworker with the squirt gun.

• “Become more deliberate about when you check for messages” – since reading about this, I’ve noticed that I check my email SO OFTEN, for unnecessary reasons! 
• “Mind the gaps. Resist the urge to tap around on your smartphone when you’re waiting in line at the grocery store, walking to the coffee shop, or in the bathroom. Use these small breaks to reflect on what you’re doing, to recharge, and to consider alternate approaches to work and life. In these moments, mindlessly burning time on the phone isn’t worth it – doing so eliminates the valuable space in your schedule.”
• Meditation – “increases working memory capacity” – need to meditate more. “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.”
• “If you notice your mind has wandered to the past or to another unproductive place, allow it to wander (or, if you want, guide it to think of something else if it has gone to an unproductive place).”
• Spending time in nature – “helps you feel rested and recharged. This activity makes you up to 50% better at creative problem-solving tasks, lowers levels of stress hormones in your body by around 16%, makes you calmer, and elevates your mood.”
• Mental energy oscillates in 90 minute waves

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Criticisms

I felt like the discussions on focusing on work tasks are geared towards people who work in an office. So this was partially helpful to me, but I also skipped through the discussions that helped you apply the skills to work. 

I highly doubt people recall some of the things Bailey discusses – like who actually remembers how they learned to write?

I somewhat disagreed on another of Bailey’s discussions regarding watching political debates or channels. He says that “listening to a few talking heads about political issues on TV probably isn’t actionable or conducive to your personal goals.” and that reading a book about historical figures is better for focus. – I disagree. Current politics is history in the making, and it’s best for people to think about current politics as much as possible. I used to be someone who hated talking about politics. Yes, I agree that watching figureheads argue about politics is unproductive, but that’s steering readers away from having productive current political discussions. Because Bailey is telling his readers to ignore current politics, go read about politics from a few hundred years ago.

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The skills that I listed above were skills I found within this book that I would personally benefit from. If you would be interested in re-adjusting your own focus and attention from social media and to what’s important to your life, I highly suggest starting to read books in the productivity genre.

Reading this, I could tell it wasn’t a book that could help everyone focus. Firstly and obviously, it’s for those who are willing to pick it up and work on being more attentive and intentional with their energy and time. But secondly, it felt like the discussions on focusing on work tasks were geared towards people who work in an office. So it was partially beneficial to me, but not for my work. 

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Other skills that improve one’s focus that Bailey did not discuss

• Improve your diet
• Drink more water
• Exercise

Read on.