Hyperfocus: How to Work Less to Achieve More

We are what we consume.

think back to when you first learned to write. You likely began by learning the letters of the alphabet—how they were shaped, what they sounded like, and so on. These were the first dots you accumulated on the topic: d, s, c, h, s . . . At this point your brain started connecting these dots, clustering them into alphabetical order, distinguishing t

Gazing at the ocean, a biologist might ponder all the creatures that lurk beneath its surface, an artist might consider the colors she’d use to paint it, a sailor might take note of the condition of the wind and the waves, while a writer might try to think about the words he’d use to describe it.

our focus is always filtered through what we already know.

Intentionally leave tasks unfinished. The more abruptly you stop working on a creative task, the more you’ll think about it when you switch to another. Leave some residue in your attentional space for your mind to continue processing the initial task. For example, try stopping work on a complicated report midway through a sentence. Leaving tasks pa

This is where scatterfocus trounces hyperfocus—scatterfocus is much better at piecing together solutions to complex, nonlinear problems.

To invest in a good night’s sleep and to use this tool to your advantage, review the problems you’re facing, as well as any information you’re trying to encode into memory, before you head to bed. Your mind will continue processing these things while you rest.

Sleep also helps you remember more—it consolidates the dots you’ve accumulated over the course of the day into long-term memory and intentionally forgets the less important and irrelevant dots you encountered.

One study that had participants incubate a problem found that during REM sleep, participants “showed enhanced integration of unassociated information,” which helped them find a solution.