This week's book: "Hyperfocus" by Chris Bailey.
"Just as hyperfocus is your brain's most productive mode, scatterfocus is its most creative."
Chris Bailey
I need to get out more. Not to be more social. To think better.
Here's what I've noticed over the years: my best ideas never arrive while I am at my desk. That time is for when I’m working on something. The best ideas come on a walk, on a train, on the dock, etc. No music, no podcast, no phone in my hand. For me, it’s usually when I’m out walking, letting my mind go wherever it wants. Then an idea pops up. I suspect it's the same for you. Most people's best thinking doesn't happen while they're staring at the problem. It happens in the shower, on a drive, out on a walk, when they stop trying so hard.
A lot of what became All Star Mentors started exactly that way. On foot, in the woods, with a wandering and unrestricted mind.
But lately I've drifted from it. More time inside. More time at the desk, head down, grinding away. And this week's book reminded me how valuable that free time is.
Chris Bailey calls it Scatterfocus, and I'll be honest, at first it felt backwards and counterintuitive to me. Just yesterday I wrote about how much I believe in focus and how little faith I have in multitasking. Now here's Bailey making the case for deliberately letting your mind wander. It seemed like a contradiction.
It isn't. Here's the distinction that won me over.
Scatterfocus isn't distraction. Distraction is when your attention gets stolen, you sit down to work and forty minutes later you find yourself deep in your phone with nothing to show for it. Scatterfocus is the opposite. It's when you give your mind permission to roam, on purpose, so it can go make connections that stay hidden while you're grinding away. Distraction scatters your attention against your will. Scatterfocus scatters it by design.
And this part is also very interesting... Bailey found that the single most creative form of scatterfocus is what he calls the habitual mode, doing something simple and repetitive, like walking, that occupies your body just enough to free your mind. In other words, the thing I'd stumbled into on my walks for years turns out to be, according to the research, the most creative mode my brain has. I didn't know why it worked. I just knew it worked.
There's a simple way to think about the two modes together.
Hyperfocus helps you work with the “dots” you already have. Scatterfocus helps you connect them in ways you haven’t seen.
You need both. Hyperfocus to do the work. Scatterfocus to figure out what's worth doing, and to make the advancements that grinding will never get you to. Lately I've had plenty of the first and not nearly enough of the second. All input, no room for ideas to percolate.
I know this works. I've lived it. I just forgot to keep doing it.
One thing to try today
Go somewhere without your phone. A walk is best. No earbuds, no podcast, nothing feeding your mind but the world in front of you. Ten to fifteen minutes is all you need, thirty is better. Don't try to solve anything. Just let your mind wander and see what floats up. Bring something to capture the idea when it comes, because it will, and it'll slip away fast if you don't. This is the opposite of forcing an answer. It's making room for one to naturally materialize.
So here's the question I'm thinking about so far this week: what's the last good idea that came to you when you weren't even trying? And when's the last time you acted on it?
Me, I'll be going for a walk as soon as I finish this.
Mike
Practical wisdom for the life you're building
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