Hyperfocus

CONSUME SOME CAFFEINE BEFORE READING If it’s not too late in the day—caffeine takes eight to fourteen hours to metabolize out of your system—consider reading alongside a cup of coffee or tea.

PUT YOUR PHONE OUT OF SIGHT When your mind is even slightly resisting a task, it will look for more novel things to focus on. Our smartphones are a great example—they provide an endless stream of bite-sized, delicious information for our brains to consume.

(One of the most underrated skills: letting other people finish their sentences before starting yours.)

The second way that our attention is limited is that after focusing on something, we can hold only a small amount of information in our short-term memory.

Maintaining a distractions list as you read will capture the important things that float to the surface of your consciousness. Writing them down to make sure they don’t slip through the cracks will let you refocus on the task at hand.

Becoming aware of what you’re thinking about is one of the best practices for managing your attention. The more you notice what’s occupying your attentional space, the faster you can get back on track when your mind begins to wander, which it does a remarkable 47 percent of the time.

Directing your attention toward the most important object of your choosing—and then sustaining that attention—is the most consequential decision we will make throughout the day. We are what we pay attention to.

Simplifying our attentional space lets us maintain enough room to work and live intentionally throughout the day. This lets us spend more time on what’s important and meaningful in the moment.

While falling into autopilot mode can help us keep up the pace of work and life, attention is our most limited and constrained resource. The more we can manage our attention with intention, the more focused, productive, and creative we become. A

Studies show we can work for an average of just forty seconds in front of a computer before we’re either distracted or interrupted. (Needless to say, we do our best work when we attend to a task for a lot longer than forty seconds.)