Chris Bailey: Hyperfocus - How to Work Less to Achieve More

EPISODE 182

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Mike Parsons: Hello and welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's episode 182. I'm your, co-host Mike Parsons. And as always, I'm joined by Mr. Hyper-focus himself. Mr. Mark Pearson Freeland. Good morning, mark. Hey, good morning, 

[00:00:13] Mark Pearson Freeland: Mike productivity, Parsons. How are you doing 

[00:00:16] Mike Parsons: this morning? Oh, I'm feeling the productivity and we are taking things next level on our journey into productivity.

[00:00:24] Where are we going today, man 

[00:00:25] Mark Pearson Freeland: today, Mike and episode 182. We are digging into Chris Bailey's hyperfocus. How to work less to achieve more. Mike, I was pretty taken away by David Allen's title last week in his getting things done. The art of stress free productivity. Maybe Chris Bailey's taking the mantle for an even more.

[00:00:49] Promise field book, title. What do you think? Oh, it's a 

[00:00:52] Mike Parsons: mouthwatering proposition. Isn't it market doing? Less rogue. Okay. Yeah. Achieve more. You got [00:01:00] me. It's almost like we've entered into some sort of productivity, Nirvana, but in true moonshot style, I think we need to deconstruct pull it all apart and work out how we 

[00:01:09] Mark Pearson Freeland: can do it too.

[00:01:09] Don't you think that's right. Hyper-focused by Chris Bailey is really around managing your attention. And I think that's a perfect way of building on what we were learning last week with David Allen, around productivity, David Allen, he was breaking down all these concepts for us. Wasn't he Mike, around getting things out of your brain, maybe onto paper or onto your computer because ultimately you're your brain.

[00:01:31] Your mind is not a good office. Let's be honest. And I love this extension that Chris Bailey's going to do for us in today's show, which is then if you are taking things out of your brain and creating a system, or maybe a tool to keep track of what you're doing. Chris Bailey's extension or build that he's then doing is okay, now how do you stay focused?

[00:01:52] Keep your attention on those things that you need to go and do in order to go out and achieve your ultimate goal, be that paying attention [00:02:00] to your work or your family or whatever it might be, the it attributes can go anywhere, but I think it's a great extension into what you and I, and our listeners are going on now, which is a deep dive and journey into productivity.

[00:02:14] Mike Parsons: Yeah. And isn't it. It's so fascinating mark, that as we study these real experts, gurus of productivity, that the real proposition here is it's way more than time management. 

[00:02:29] Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah. It's way more than just time management. I think what we all, as we're learning all, I think at least for me might assume is I just need to utilize how I'm going to spend my time, but it's not just that, is it because there's so much, that's challenging us as we think about what we're going to spend our time on each day.

[00:02:51] Yes, it is now becoming harder and harder in order to do that, to focus. 

[00:02:55] Mike Parsons: Yeah. And if you do the simple math, if you're going to sleep for eight hours,[00:03:00] that kind of reduces you down to 

[00:03:02] Mark Pearson Freeland: 16, 

[00:03:04] Mike Parsons: that 16 hours is left in the day from which you need to do a whole bunch of stuff to take care of yourself, such as eat, shower, exercise, organize your life.

[00:03:17] Before, it that's eight hours. Then that leaves you eight hours of work. So our not only is our attention scarce, but our energy is scarce too. So we need to find a way of not only organizing the time structures of our day, but then when we have a moment to work out, to be with our loved ones, they need to be quality moments.

[00:03:43] And I think what our show today is going to do is really set the scene for the competition, for our attention, for our focus, for our energy. But it's also going to give us some critical practices and habits that we can adopt [00:04:00] so that we can, as Mr. Bailey would have it work less and achieve more. So with no further ado, mark, where do we want to dive?

[00:04:09] Mark Pearson Freeland: I think we've teased this concept around focusing your time, your energy and your attention and mindset onto things a little bit already. Mike. So why don't we hear now from the author himself, Mr. Chris Bailey tell us why it really is harder than ever to focus and how fundamentally all of us, you and I, and all of our listeners just need to take ownership in order to change our mindsets.

[00:04:34] Chris Bailey: A few years ago, I began to observe something in my own behavior that made me a bit uncomfortable. And that was that from the moment that I woke up to the morning to the end of the day, my life was a C. Of screens. I started the day with the thing that woke me up first thing in the morning, my phone. And so I sat there in [00:05:00] bed watching various cooking videos on Instagram and bouncing around between a bunch of different applications, but then it was time to get out of bed and cook breakfast.

[00:05:09] And so the thing that I focused then on, in addition to the omelet in the pan was the iPad that was right next to the oven. And then it was time to do some work. And so I went to a different screen, which was attached to another screen itself. All the wildest little devil on my wrist was tapping and beeping and blooping and distracting me as I was trying to get important stuff.

[00:05:34] But there was one particular offender out of all of these different devices that I wasted more time on than anything else that was this dastardly thing. My phone, I could spend hours on this thing every single day. And so I decided to essentially for all intents and purposes, get rid of the thing for a month as an experiment, I thought I'm going to live on this [00:06:00] thing for just 30 minutes, every single day at a maximum.

[00:06:03] And so this is the amount of time I have for maps. This is the amount of time to call my mother. This is the amount of time that I have for everything that I could possibly want to do to listen to music, to listen to podcasts. And I observed what happened during this time. It took about a week to adjust downward into a new, lower level of stimulation.

[00:06:26] But once I did. I noticed that three curious things began to happen. First, my attention span grew. It was like I could focus on things, not effortlessly, but with much more ease than I could before this experiment started. In addition to this though, as I was going about the world. And especially when my mind wandered a bit, I had more ideas that my mind arrived at.

[00:06:55] And on top of this, I had more plans and [00:07:00] thoughts about the future. Getting rid of one simple device led to these three effects. 

[00:07:08] Thomas Frank: Why 

[00:07:09] Chris Bailey: noticing this a few years back led me on this long journey to get to the bottom of what it takes to focus in a world of distraction. I poured over hundreds of research papers.

[00:07:23] Front to back my office. I don't know if you've ever watched one of those crime shows where somebody's solving a murder. And so they have this big Bristol board and their string attached to papers, attached to memos, attached to newspaper quitters. This is like what the state of my office was. I flew out to meet experts around the world who study focus.

[00:07:41] I conducted more experiments on myself and tell the point I had 25,000 words of research notes about why this is the case. How does technology influence our attention and our ability to focus, 

[00:07:57] Mike Parsons: influencing our [00:08:00] attention? I think this has to be one of the topics designer, mark, that we are on one hand, given the power of technology.

[00:08:13] In the Palm of our hands in our pockets, everywhere we go and all the good things that come with that versus the way that it takes over our mind. It takes over our whole day. 

[00:08:28] Mark Pearson Freeland: It really is two 

[00:08:30] Mike Parsons: sides. It is a fascinating, epic challenge that brings us so much goodness and so much challenge at the same time.

[00:08:38] Mark Pearson Freeland: And it's true for all of us. Isn't it? And it's a real practice that you have to S you have to set your intention around. How you utilize your device, in Chris Bailey's case, he's setting himself that experiment. He strikes me as a little bit like a Tim Ferris. He experiments with things for a week or a month to see how they [00:09:00] inspire or change his levels of productivity, which I really admire.

[00:09:03] I think that's great. And obviously in that case, he said it a test for a month brings it down to 30 minutes a day, but it's true for all of us and exactly like you would just say Mike and building on that. I do have these devices. I can research any book, any framework, any mindset at the same time, I can also waste an hour and a half.

[00:09:24] Going through Instagram or being distracted, which is more relevant to the point of Chris Bailey by constant notifications, emails, slack, instant messaging, there's shopping, let's say the creation of the show that we would do or moon shots or a bit of work for the day job. And that's the real challenge.

[00:09:47] Isn't it being able to filter out and therefore focus on one topic at a time, rather than in, in my case, maybe splitting yourself [00:10:00] across maybe three or four different things, different projects, different compensations, perhaps, and therefore only doing maybe 10% of your allocated brainpower into each one at a time, which isn't very efficient.

[00:10:14] Is it? 

[00:10:15] Mike Parsons: It's not. And I think I've noticed the benefit that I've done. A couple of things. You mentioned this keyword of filtering things out to protect our own attention and our energy. I on my on my phone, I have removed from the home page of my phone. There is, I'm just checking as we're talking now, there is no one single social network, no LinkedIn Facebook none of it.

[00:10:44] So I've hidden them in folders on a second or third screen of my phone and mark, this brings me so much peace because I noticed I had developed an involuntary behavior. Where I would just, oh, look, there's [00:11:00] the LinkedIn thing. There's the Facebook I'll just tap in. That can be my little five minutes.

[00:11:04] But it was actually, it wasn't giving piece to my mind. It was stealing my attention. Another thing that I've done is I've turned off email notifications on all devices. I do not want to see an email notification unless I'm doing my email and this has brought me so much peace and calm. Another quick one before I ask you for yours is the last two weekends, I have done no email on both Saturday and Sunday.

[00:11:38] So I work up to a mega inbox on Monday, but I like it. How about you Mo what are you doing in this battle for your attention? 

[00:11:47] Mark Pearson Freeland: I certainly fall into the guilty camp and isn't it. Isn't it strange how the admission that you just did that Mike? Oh, I didn't even check my emails on Saturday and Sunday.

[00:11:58] There'll be an a time when [00:12:00] you would never check your emails on a Saturday and Sunday, but maybe it's the product of the last few years where the work has become more hybrid. There's a blurring between the nine to five. We all probably do a little bit of work on the weekends. It's obey now.

[00:12:14] Isn't it. And again, the big call out here is we shouldn't be doing that because by focusing on work, let's say the weekend where therefore sacrificing is a big word, but we're distracting ourselves perhaps from spending time resting. From seeing family 

[00:12:34] Mike Parsons: from recuperating, and that's going to be a big thing.

[00:12:36] And this show mark that we're going to discover that the role of hyper-focus hypertension hyper performance goes hand in hand with hyper chill. Relax, which sounds all very good. For me the question for you though, is what's one thing you've done recently to protect your focus and your attention.

[00:12:58] Is there anything you're doing [00:13:00] that's working well actually for the 

[00:13:02] Mark Pearson Freeland: first time in my career, I would say I'm utilizing a second device. So I will I normally I would have kept everything consolidated on one phone emails instant messaging and so on, on one device with the intention of being more efficient, because it's just one thing I'm experimenting at the moment with utilizing an internet only for.

[00:13:28] For my work stuff, meaning that when I go for a run or a walk or I need to get to the shops or whatever it might be, I can leave that phone at home and therefore not be able to check emails and notifications on my personal device, because it is a way in another corner and what I'm finding, and this is a new test.

[00:13:54] What I'm finding actually is the ability to switch off from work a little bit [00:14:00] easier in the evening times, for example. So 

[00:14:04] Mike Parsons: there's no temptation, 

[00:14:05] Mark Pearson Freeland: right? There's no temptation, but when I do naturally, of course, my brain will often go towards work as it always does. I will be when I do think about it, it doesn't feel.

[00:14:15] Frustrating because instead it's allowing us, as we find out later in the show from Chris Bailey, allowing your mind to occasionally wander into areas that are of interest to you, with work, for example is positive, but by removing this sort of shackles let's call it of emails, notifications, contacting others, the colleagues, trying to get your attention and so on by removing that entirely, it's actually quite, quite an interesting experience.

[00:14:44] I'll keep you up to date as we progress through the productivity series, Mike, you and I, and our listeners I'll come back to this point maybe and see how it works because so far I must admit alongside keeping social media off my home screens. Breaking out the devices seems to be working. [00:15:00] 

[00:15:00] Mike Parsons: That's fantastic.

[00:15:01] I tell you what if that's working for you, I tell you what else is working for achieving more and that's becoming a member of the moonshots podcasts. That's jumping onto Patreon and doing the good stuff. When you say mark. 

[00:15:12] Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah, I know. You know what? It's so simple, Mike, you just navigate over to moonshot, stood IO, click and become a member and sign up on patrion.com.

[00:15:21] And you can join not only the ranks of you and I hanging out Luna powered, calmer and things, but you can also join the ranks of our Patreon members who every single. Get a beautiful call-out. So Mike, give me a, maybe a couple of minutes to read out all of these names because it keeps on. Please.

[00:15:41] Welcome Bob Neil's John Terry, no. Or marshaling candy, Mr. Tom and mark modular and Connor Rodrigo Yasmeen Liza said. And Mr. Bungee, Maria, Paul Berg and Kalman David, Joe, crystal, Eva Christian, hurricane brain. Sammo Allah Kelly, Barbara, Bob [00:16:00] Andrei, Matt, and our brand new individual. Eric renders welcome Eric as well as all of our returning patron members.

[00:16:08] Thank you for joining us. 

[00:16:10] Mike Parsons: We are so grateful to all of you for your contribution because in the end of the day, It's really great as hosts of the show that we see that we're making such a difference that we're creating some value in the world and that you are acknowledging that. So we appreciate that.

[00:16:30] We also, we appreciate being able to pay all the bills. 

[00:16:34] Mark Pearson Freeland: It makes a difference of being able to create the show because of, with paying for our hosting. And so my coming there wouldn't really be a show with 

[00:16:41] Mike Parsons: death. I know. We have to pay Squarespace. We have to pay transistor. We have to pay genius.

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[00:17:45] If you are listening now, and this is speaking to just go to moonshots.io, hit the members button, and you'll be part of the crew. And I tell you what, we're pretty close. Now. We'll be creating our moonshot [00:18:00] merchandise, where you'll be able to get called tees and posters, either as gifts for friends or something for yourself.

[00:18:06] And if you think about yourself and getting the most out of yourself, one of the things you can do is get hyper-focused. So let's have a listen now to Chris Bailey talking about hyper-focus, but maybe the 

[00:18:17] Chris Bailey: biggest idea that this experiment taught me was that productivity is so much more than just managing our time.

[00:18:26] Of course, we all know the importance of managing our time, but I would argue that there are other ingredients that deserve to sit on the same level as managing our time. And our attention is one of them. The more focus we bring to our work, the more time the last time we have to spend on it.

[00:18:42] And the less we're distracted, the more we can hunker down on our work and get into these flow like states where we forget what time it is. And we become so immersed in what we're doing. It doesn't matter how well we can manage our time. If we can't also manage our attention. And our energy is another [00:19:00] idea that deserves to sit on that same level, because if we're burnt out at one or two in the afternoon, our productivity becomes toast.

[00:19:07] If we don't frequently step back to take breaks and recharge. And interestingly, during the project, I found that every single thing I researched or experimented with or interviewed somebody about fell into one of these three different categories. And so I think productivity is the confluence of all three, but more than that and what this meditation experiment taught me, even though it was a week, looking back, I still get so many little nuggets.

[00:19:34] Of wisdom from it was that it doesn't matter how busy or efficient we are, what matters is how much we accomplish at the end of the day. That's what I think productivity is about. And more than that, it's about accomplishing what we intended to do in the first place. And so if we intend to have a perfectly relaxing day on the beach and put her feet up and recharge and, maybe listen to a few Ted [00:20:00] talks and totally disconnect.

[00:20:01] And then we do, I would argue that we're perfectly productive and the same is true. If we intend to have a really businesslike day and submit a couple of TPS reports, whatever the heck those are, and ACE a job interview, when we achieve what we intend to, we're perfectly productive. And the best way to get there is to manage these three ingredients of productivity, our time, our attention, and our.

[00:20:25] Mark Pearson Freeland: Time, attention and energy. I love that as a triumvirate mic, particularly like what Chris was calling out at the beginning of that clip, which is the more attention you pay to something, it turns out that you'll end up spending less time on. Because you are going to be more efficient. 

[00:20:44] Mike Parsons: What just happened?

[00:20:46] Yeah. And it's imagine if we put crisp Bailey and Cal Newport in the same room together, that would be pretty intense. 

[00:20:52] Mark Pearson Freeland: There's so many references. Even from that first clip that we heard Mike with regards to why it's all harder than ever to focus. We get [00:21:00] a show on Cal Newport's led his book, a world without email show 135 recently.

[00:21:05] And he really calls out this idea of lack of focus because of all those distractions. And I think Chris is really channeling that here. Isn't it by saying if you are removing all those things that create distractions and therefore you can. One thing, let's say it's recording the moonshot, show your full attention.

[00:21:26] You're going to be doing a better job because your whole brain power is all focused on it and how it how it seems so simple, doesn't it? 

[00:21:35] Mike Parsons: It does. They're there. In fact, there are a lot of scientific research experiments that have been done that like clearly mark clearly demonstrate that this idea of multitasking is way less efficient.

[00:21:51] And that's why I think a deep work by Cal Newport, that episode we did is one of our most popular because people, [00:22:00] whether they're hyper aware of focus, time and productivity, or whether they just feel like, oh, I just want to get some, I got to get something done. Like your drag between Coles meetings, notifications messages, blah, blah.

[00:22:15] And you're like, I need to like, like you need to put on like a shield where you like a lock-in and you plow your mind 100% completely towards getting a thing done. And it's interesting, mark. I think we all achieve this at the 11th hour on a deadline. Don't we? Where we just like you just go like base mode, but I think what we're hearing here is we don't have to have.

[00:22:48] You know that epic gargantuan effort at the 11th hour, if rather over the two weeks prior to the deadline, you had very deliberately [00:23:00] planned moments of hyper-focus deep work. In small packages, they would accumulate just in the same way that, that big push at the 11th hour, but without all of the stress and exhaustion that you can experience, if you leave it all to the last moment, right?

[00:23:16] Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah, I think that's building on what David Allen was revealing last week and getting things done. Your brain is pretty limited. So getting structure into how you approach challenges, whether they be business or family, get them out of your head, make them compartmentalized and organized and a bit of structure with that level of intention.

[00:23:40] It means that when you are coming to focus your attention, focus your energy and therefore manage the tasks that you have to do. It becomes that little bit easier and less intimidating because you've spent some time bringing and breaking down the things [00:24:00] that felt pretty insurmountable. You actually, you're just putting them into a structure where you think, okay how am I going to do this?

[00:24:06] I'll spend time over here. I'll spend time over there. And this. We've certainly done together in the past as well. Hasn't it? Where, we've spoken about the idea of creating a table of contents, or just scribbling down some thoughts on a piece of paper, let's say maybe a week before the delivery.

[00:24:24] And I think you're right. A lot of us do come to the table at that last minute again, David Allen was saying, crisis can evoke serenity and you've got a timeline, but at the same time, if you are laying the foundation a week or a few days prior, then suddenly it feels that much more achievable because you've given yourself enough runway to land that.

[00:24:47] Mike Parsons: Yeah let's do something fun right now. Let's build a hyper-focus playbook for right now. Let's just imagine mark you and I wanted to create a list [00:25:00] of requirements to go into hyper-focus mode. Let's say we're about to go and work on semi. That requires absolute hyper-focus. Okay. I'll start it off.

[00:25:10] The first thing I would do is go to a space where I can be focused. I would probably say, I would find, I would go to my study or go to an office, close the door, and I would have a big cup of water, maybe a cup of tea maybe even coffee, but I would set myself up with hydro. Shut the door and like close, physically, close myself off.

[00:25:43] That would be step number one. Okay. What happens next? We're going for our hyper-focus playbook. Mark. We're in the room. We've we've got the water. We've got the coffee, whatever it takes. We've closed the door. What else do we need to do to get into that? Hyper-focused 

[00:25:57] Mark Pearson Freeland: I like that. You've set the scene [00:26:00] physically.

[00:26:00] You're not going to have to leave that room to get any more water I would. Now, if let's say I'm working on a computer, actually. No. If I was working on anything whiteboard piece of paper, I would turn on do not disturb mode on my devices. 

[00:26:15] Mike Parsons: Big time. And I would turn my F my, my phone 

[00:26:19] Mark Pearson Freeland: face down.

[00:26:20] Mike Parsons: I would I would have everything from watch phone, iPad, laptop, everything is on, do not serve. I love that one. The other thing I would do is block the time in my. 

[00:26:32] Mark Pearson Freeland: Absolutely. This is something big that obviously we've spoken about before, and it does hark back to county Newport. We did deep work in show 58, Mike, that feels like a long time ago.

[00:26:44] Doesn't it change at time? Blocking is hugely important to me because it just protects that not only does it protect from other people booking time, but also it just helps me going back to what we were just talking about laying [00:27:00] the foundation. For me, it helps me almost appreciate and understand what it is.

[00:27:07] I'm about to sit down and work, because imagine you're in that room, you've got your water, you've turned off all your phones and now you're thinking, okay where do I start? Yup. Okay I've got loads of problems to do, which one do I do first? So 

[00:27:18] Mike Parsons: let's keep going. So let's just imagine that it's a 10 slide presentation that we have to make.

[00:27:23] The first thing I would do is I would make sure that anything that can deliver an email message notification or even a glimpse of email is away from me. So if I needed to pull some inputs from that, people are shared to me via email or so forth, I would get them all into a folder so that I don't even, I don't even want to see a subject of an email.

[00:27:51] I'd get all those documents in there. And then what I would do, let's say we've got 90 minutes for hyper-focus. And this is really interesting for a guy that loves all [00:28:00] these digital stuff. I would probably write down how I intend to spend that 90 minutes by breaking it into 30 minutes slots. And I would probably do something like, okay, for the first 30 minutes, I'm not even going to open keynote.

[00:28:15] I'm actually just going to write all of the content that would be, and I would like grammar, check it and clean it all up. So it's a very discrete body of work. Okay. Check. I've got all that content drafted. Then I can open up keynote. I would think about which template I'm going to use. And I'd be thinking to myself what's the most efficient would I take a previous presentation or what I take a template that I have, and then I would focus on the production go more from a writing mode, into a design mode.

[00:28:49] And then the third 30 minutes, I'd be all about. Reviewing fine tuning, et cetera. Maybe even I would try and nominate someone to get [00:29:00] ready for preread so that they can actually review it and give me feedback. And this would be how I would attack that, that 90 minutes. What else could we do to make this like a hyper-focus like power 

[00:29:13] Mark Pearson Freeland: moment?

[00:29:14] Yeah, I would definitely start off the keynote, for me, I'd probably even if you've got the luxury of having a whiteboard, I would draw maybe even slides on the whiteboard, why men stop and why frame? Exactly. Start to it's similar to what you were just saying about writing it. First grammar checking.

[00:29:37] So think about that follow what's going to work. Okay. If I want those two slides, can I just condense them into one slide and gradually working through that almost offline, so to speak. Prior to then putting it together online. When we do get into the point of putting the content into the keynote again, if that [00:30:00] requires access to the internet and so on avoiding opening up your diary or opening up emails and instead just using icon libraries or stock libraries or imagery, whatever it is that you're choosing to do, staying away from those sites that will then cause distraction and including social media.

[00:30:20] Oh 

[00:30:20] Mike Parsons: yeah. I would not have anything resembling news or social anywhere near me. And I would probably the other interesting thing I would do on those talking about this study minute chapters, I would probably get out of my chair at the end of every 30 minutes, 

[00:30:38] Mark Pearson Freeland: moving around physically.

[00:30:41] Yes. Really helps me focus for 

[00:30:45] Mike Parsons: sure. It very good for transitioning as well. When you want to switch your brain. Okay. I think I've written a really good outline for this deck. Now. I need to like, get into like design storytelling and Richard. Okay. Done [00:31:00] that. Get up, stretch, move around.

[00:31:02] Don't check mail. No, don't do it. And then, okay. Right now let's review. Does this make sense? How will the audience, all that kind of stuff. 

[00:31:13] Mark Pearson Freeland: What I quite like about that which I totally agree with the idea of getting out of the chair. Maybe moving, maybe you go and sit in a different chair, or maybe you just take a different stance. Maybe you're standing for a little bit. Yeah. It hearkens back to what Walt Disney would do. You know how he'd walk in as his different characters, the dream of the realist and the critics the Disney strategy of thinking. Okay let's look at this problem in a number of different ways.

[00:31:37] I think that is maybe a precursor to your preread factor, getting feedback from other people, thinking about it from a number of different angles, then helps you stress test that idea that also helps you. Maybe come at it from a different angle and thinking maybe this makes it better. So I really liked that.

[00:31:54] I think that's a great tip. 

[00:31:56] Mike Parsons: That's a really nice little playbook. I would love to hear from you. [00:32:00] Alison is how do you create hyper-focus? We want to know like what your techniques are. You can share with us, your ideas, your inspiration teach us. We just want to be the best version of ourselves.

[00:32:10] And if our listeners wanted to send us an email mark, we haven't talked about our email address very much recently. How might one send us an email after their high profile? 

[00:32:20] Mark Pearson Freeland: Yes. After they are listening to the show, they're thinking, okay what is it that I do? I'd love to let Mark and Mike and the rest of my moonshots community.

[00:32:28] Now you can send us a link. So it'll send us anything. In fact, at hello@moonshots.io, we receive every single message you send. We take a look, we'll call out the ones that we really like, and please let us know, get in touch. We're all part of a learning community. So everything that you, our listeners are experiencing when you hear us learning.

[00:32:52] Hey share with us because we really do value the idea of a shared brain and the idea that we're all 

[00:32:57] Mike Parsons: learning together. Now talk about [00:33:00] sharing your brain and the different parts of how your brain works. We've just talked about hyper focus, but we can now talk about the inverse of this, which is very important.

[00:33:11] So let's dig in to this idea that Chris Bailey has to juxtapose hyper-focus and he calls it scatter focus. 

[00:33:20] Chris Bailey: There's a great quote that I love that you might be familiar with from J R Tolkien, where he says that not all those who wander are lost and the exact same thing is true. It turns out with regard to our focus, with regard to our attention.

[00:33:37] If you think back to when your best, most brilliant ideas strike you, you're rarely focused on something. Maybe this morning, you were taking a shower. Or maybe some morning in the past, and then your mind had a chance to connect several of the constellations of ideas that were swirling around in your mind to create an idea that [00:34:00] would never have materialized.

[00:34:01] Otherwise, if you were focused on something else on your phone, 

[00:34:06] Mike Parsons: for example, 

[00:34:08] Chris Bailey: this is a mode, especially when we do this deliberately, when we deliberately let our mind wander, I call this mode scatter focus and the research shows that it lets our mind come up with ideas. It lets our mind plan because of where our mind wanders to this is fascinating.

[00:34:24] It turns out that when we just let our attention rest, it goes to three main places. We think about the past. We think about the present and we think about the future, but we think about the past less than we might think only about 12% of the time and often the time where recalling ideas in these thought laundering.

[00:34:48] But the present, which is a much more productive place to wander. We wander to think about the present 28% of the time. And so this is, it's something as simple as you're typing [00:35:00] up an email and you can't find a way to phrase something, cause it's very delicate. Maybe it's political, you go and walk to another room.

[00:35:06] You go to another room of the house of the office and the solution hits you because your mind had a chance to approach it and prod at that problem from different directions. But here's the thing our minds wander to think about the future more than the past and the present combined whenever our mind is wandering, we think about the future 48% of the time.

[00:35:30] This is why when we're taking a shower, we plan out our entire day, even though it hasn't started yet, this is called our minds prospective bias and it occurs when our mind wander. 

[00:35:43] Mark Pearson Freeland: Chris, Bailey's really making the case, Mike, for the the old adage, take a walk before making a decision again, building on how you were talking about a hyper-focus part of that is to step away, have a little bit of a break.[00:36:00] 

[00:36:00] Chris is really calling out this concept of if you've got something that you need to do and you add that decision-making moment. Just take a breather, maybe go for a walk, have a ready. 

[00:36:11] Mike Parsons: And this is where the intersection between like the planning part that Dave Allen was really big on something that we've also seen with the Eisenhower matrix, which is planning in the future, your important activities that not only gives you peace of mind, knowing that you've allocated that time, but when it comes, you can truly go deeply into it.

[00:36:31] But in between these hyper-focused moments, it's really important to cool your jets. And I think this is why we always talk about good ideas in the shower, on a run. Often when you're not intentionally trying to solve the problem, the subconscious mind percolates away on it and brings you new insights.

[00:36:55] But rest is critical for that. There's this great study from the [00:37:00] university of York and university of Florida that found that 40% of our creative ideas come during the breaks not when you're actually in the zone. So you need to plan for that. And give yourself both those on and off times, right?

[00:37:19] That's such an important 

[00:37:20] Mark Pearson Freeland: point, isn't it? That's such a huge percentage, 40% of ideas, creative ideas come between breaks and downtime when your mind is free to wander that. That's an amazing 

[00:37:31] Mike Parsons: It's almost cancer. It's almost counter-intuitive because you would assume that when you're like going, level five and you're cranking through things that all the good stuff's going to come, it's just not how the mind works to quote David Allen.

[00:37:45] The mind is not a very good office. We are learning so very much, but if you're feeling mark that, it's a moment that you just want to I'm getting into the stuff that mark and Mike are talking about. I'm feeling hyper-focused and you just wanted to like, have a [00:38:00] little bit of a pause. I think nothing better just to.

[00:38:04] Delight the brain, wind the brain down a little bit would be just to jump into your podcast app. Don't 

[00:38:10] Mark Pearson Freeland: you think? Oh, yes. When I'm listening to a podcast, that's sparking interest. I think one of the best things that you can do is get it out there for other listeners around the world to hear.

[00:38:22] And the way that we can do that for the moonshot show, Mike is by asking you our listeners to rate and review us, rate us in your podcast app of choice, review us within apple podcasts or any of your others as well, because that's the way that the show gets into the hands and the ears of listeners from around the world.

[00:38:42] And ultimately all we're trying to do on the moonshot show is break down these topics and these books for like-minded individuals around the world who wants to learn out loud with us. Listeners is so appreciated when it comes to ratings and reviews, because that's how all that clever algorithm rhythm works in the [00:39:00] background.

[00:39:00] That's how we get into charts and different countries and how we start ranking in different search engines and so on. So that's another, call-out from us to your listeners. If you can rate us and review us, that's how we can get the moonshots message out 

[00:39:14] Mike Parsons: there. Yeah, totally. And particularly for those of you who are not members if becoming a member is something that doesn't feel right for you right now.

[00:39:24] Then what we would ask you is, go out there, jump into the app while you're listening and give us a thumbs up, give us five stars. Leave a review. We are really appreciative of all the people that actually take the time to go and do that because it really helps us. And the way it helps us, when you go into your app, when you give us a rating or review, is it helps new listeners come to the show.

[00:39:50] And four years ago, we started with zero listeners and thanks to you writing and reviewing our show. We now have over 50,000 of them, so well [00:40:00] done. Let's keep it going. Let's go for the hundred. I'm thinking that there's a lot of people on this planet who want to be the best version of themselves. 

[00:40:08] Mark Pearson Freeland: Certainly demonstrated by that growing audience from around the world, listening every week, our Patreon members who are joining us every week, it seems to me, Mike, that there's a lot of people like you and I, and the moonshots team who just enjoy learning and becoming the best version of themselves.

[00:40:25] And I think going 

[00:40:28] Mike Parsons: and that's, I think that is a great intention, mark, and I just got so fired up because our next clip is about intention and why you set this up because we're going to hear from someone a bit differently. 

[00:40:41] Mark Pearson Freeland: That's right. We've just heard from Chris talking about hyper-focus and scatter focus and the fact that it needs to be a combination of both, you can go really deep, but sometimes you just need to go for a walk.

[00:40:52] And that really comes from setting clear intentions in your mind, around when and how you're going to focus. So in [00:41:00] this next clip, Mike, we've got a new individual new voice from YouTube called Thomas Frank, who does a great breakdown of Chris Bailey's approach to intention. So let's hear from Chris Bailey via Thomas Frank, about how we all should set intentions in order to focus.

[00:41:18] What makes 

[00:41:18] Thomas Frank: an intention a good one? For me, there is one key question to ask here. When you sit down to work, ask yourself if the intention that you set is specific enough to make your next action. An obvious one, here are a few examples. Write a video script. I literally did this just this morning.

[00:41:34] It's actually not a very good intention because it leaves a lot of room for interpretation and writing a video script might be a multi-day process. So instead, I can rephrase that as write a rough draft of the first main body point of this script. Again, it's a multi-day process. So if I know I'm writing on one point, I'm much more likely to get started quickly.

[00:41:53] And additionally, this might even be more important. I know that. A rough draft. That's my intention. And that's going to stop [00:42:00] me from making edits, which will slow down the initial writing process. And it's are much better made during a second pass through. After I've already gotten the rough draft onto the page.

[00:42:09] Let's take an example, go to the gym again, a lot of room for interpretation there. So things are going to be a lot better. If I know what I'm going to do. When I get to the gym, I know which exercises I'm going to do, what order I'm going to do them in, how many sets and how many intended reps. This is actually part of the reason why I work with an online coach who sets that programming for me ahead of time.

[00:42:28] But even if I wasn't, I would always make sure to go into. With a plan now for me, the absolute most important element to getting my work done is still interest care, wanting to do the work that is in front of me. But the reality is all of us have things that we sometimes have to do that we don't want to do.

[00:42:47] And this applies to people who overall love their job. Personally, I love being a YouTuber. I love being a content creator. There's a lot of freedom involved. There's a lot of creativity involved, but still there are small parts of the job that I still just don't want to do [00:43:00] sometimes. Or sometimes my brain wants to put my main job on the back burner because of some other current obsession.

[00:43:06] And this is where intentionality really. It's because when you get specific, when you make your next actions completely obvious, and when you're tailor your environment for focus, that's when your self comes in and allows you to get your work done. Even if it's not exactly what you want to do in the moment.

[00:43:22] And that is the crux, the main part of this lesson that I took from this book. Now, one thing that can really help you to set these intentions when you're working is having a well-maintained productivity system as David Allen famously put it, our brains are for having ideas, not for holding them, which is why you want to have a well-maintained organized external system, a single source of truth.

[00:43:42] If you will, for recording the details of all your tasks, your events, and your ideas, it's the system that allows you to make sure nothing ever slips through the cracks in your life. 

[00:43:51] Mike Parsons: Don't let things slip through the cracks. Mark. I think one of the big messages we're getting there from Thomas Frank is [00:44:00] this freedom in the method.

[00:44:01] And we heard that so much in the last show from David Allen. And I think, the way I was relating to it, mark is I did a really big run on the weekend and it's the biggest run I've ever done in my life. It was 30 kilometers. Wow. Now, what was really interesting about that because it's very black and white, you're going to run for a long time and three hours to get your 30 Ks in.

[00:44:31] So here's the interesting thing. The amount of plans. That went into this 30 K run was enormous, but I had, interestingly, I had to think about weather gear, hydration, what time I'm going to run, where I'm going to, all of those things were done taking on lots of carbs the day before, managing the timing and sequencing of nutrition and hydration.

[00:44:58] And do you know what my heart, [00:45:00] by the time I got to the run because I had prepared for it so much, cause it was such a big deal that actually the run was pretty straightforward. And what I mean by that, I even could be very aware of being in the run because I even had a, found a spot on the, on, I ran this big seven K Lu.

[00:45:26] And are around a beautiful bay area. And I had my electrolyte drink just nestled by some boats so that when I ran past, I could pick it up and drink it. Like I'd even thought that far ahead about it. So I found myself looking forward to that drink when I was getting close. But the point I want to make here is it's just a very clear goal.

[00:45:52] I want to run 30 K. You have to do all these things to do it, but I could just be so in the moment when I ran and it, strangely enough, [00:46:00] mark, the last 10 Ks was actually a real joy because I actually felt good. I had done everything right. And the plan was good and I felt good. And it was a complete contrast to ah, I feel really dehydrated, but I didn't buy a Powerade or Gatorade.

[00:46:20] All, I feel really hungry. I didn't bring any gels or bars to eat on the run, like everything had been considered. So I was able to let myself go and run a really good time and have a really good time. And I found myself at the end of it going off, I had to run a bit further. I actually think I could. Now all of this is a way of saying.

[00:46:43] That why we don't do this for other important things in our life. Why would you leave them to chance you should set your intention, be clear, get planned, get organized, have your to-do list. [00:47:00] We talk about to do it as a great task manager, have everything in there. So when you're in the moment, you're not worried about, oh, have I booked a room for the next raining?

[00:47:09] Oh, do I need to travel over here? Have I taken care of this? Because everything is captured in the method that you have for productivity, you become free and you become in the moment, mark. That is the depth of the work. 

[00:47:26] Mark Pearson Freeland: And it does it. Does, did you feel a sense of confidence when you knew that you had prepped and prepared for that epic sounding run?

[00:47:37] Yeah, I think that's it. 

[00:47:41] Mike Parsons: And I want to take you back to something we've talked about before, is that when you are well-prepared we often use the analogy of speaking in front of people when you're well-prepared you shift from anxiety or even nervousness to excitement. Exactly. [00:48:00] Because you're ready.

[00:48:01] Mark Pearson Freeland: How good does it feel when you set your intentions? You focused, that the work you've put into a particular deliverable, whether it's a 30 K run or a big presentation or an argument or a proposal or a negotiation that you can put in some work, and that you've put in all of the work, you've set your electrolytes ready to hydrate.

[00:48:25] You've put them out into the map about how you're going to talk to somebody and then you get into it. And you just feel that level of confidence at 

[00:48:35] Mike Parsons: such a relief. And when you get the job done, you feel so good. So good. 

[00:48:45] Mark Pearson Freeland: Maybe you can run even further like you did with your. 

[00:48:49] Mike Parsons: Yeah, because the thing is, I think this is the same for preparing for a big presentation at work or prepare at working on your product to, [00:49:00] or deliverable, or I don't know, hosting a business event, whatever it is.

[00:49:05] If you're well-planned then you don't have to have that sightless night before oh, I hope it goes you can be a little bit nervous and a little bit like, oh, I hope this works well, you put in the work it's going to be good. Yeah. Then basically you can just enjoy the work.

[00:49:23] You can enjoy whatever that thing is, the run, the presentation, and you don't have to be full of worry and concern, and you can just be like, this is good. This is what I'm here to do. This is what I'm born to do. Great job done. And the feeling after it, you have a say pretty good. 

[00:49:42] Mark Pearson Freeland: Isn't that amazing a feeling.

[00:49:46] If you can shift away from the stress, the anxiety that comes with a task, you're sitting there and you're thinking, oh, no, I really don't want to have to do that. But then you can create time. You can focus, you can break down [00:50:00] tensions in order to focus on that task and that task alone in order to go out and deliver that piece of work.

[00:50:08] And then do you feel confident at the end? Talk about a proposition that's valuable coming from Chris Bailey, but also the entire productivity series. 

[00:50:17] Mike Parsons: Yeah. And it's a bit different to, this idea of running around saying, oh, I'm so busy getting ready for the big thing is busy.

[00:50:26] It's not that at all. It's very deliberate. The word intention comes up a lot, but it's let's just get serious about getting the job done. And I think that there's a distinction that we want to make here that this is definitely like a very powerful place to put yourself. It's deep work.

[00:50:44] It's, hyper-focus, it's getting things done, but it goes in stark contrast, I think because we are so productive generationally right now because of all of this technology we work at, hyper-speed Mike, we do [00:51:00] run the risk of just being busy for busy sake. 

[00:51:04] Mark Pearson Freeland: Yes, I think we've spoken about it on the show before.

[00:51:08] I've certainly been guilty. Mike, I'm willing to raise my hand to me too, where you just think, oh I'm busy. Therefore I'm being productive. I'm busy. Therefore I'm a good worker or I'm busy. And therefore the work I'm handing in or that I'm accomplishing is of good quality. But really, as we all are starting to realize through studying people like Chris Bailey, for example, it's not necessarily the truth.

[00:51:33] So let's hear Mike from Chris Bailey one more time and show 182 on hyper-focus around a how as a real break. And we need to hold ourselves accountable towards the fact that business can sometimes be a lazy. 

[00:51:48] Mike Parsons: A lot of us at Google pro probably fall into the trap of needing to feel ultra productive all the time.

[00:51:55] And you mentioned that the core reason behind being productive is still allow you to do the [00:52:00] time or to have time to do the things that are really meaningful 

[00:52:02] Chris Bailey: to you go home at a reasonable hour. And 

[00:52:04] Mike Parsons: I'm listening and I'm thinking, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to incorporate all of these pieces and to become more productive.

[00:52:10] And then I'm going to schedule that 17 minute walk. So I can check that 

[00:52:15] Chris Bailey: 17 every 52. Yeah, 

[00:52:17] Mike Parsons: exactly. My question for you is what is your advice on actually disconnecting from the need to feel productive so that you can just enjoy the things that happen in life that you're 

[00:52:29] Chris Bailey: really into. Yeah. And that's the beautiful part of intention is no matter where you are, that's exactly where you need to be.

[00:52:37] And so often we look to how busy we are as a proxy for how productive we are, but busy. In my opinion is really no different from laziness when it doesn't lead us to accomplish anything at the end of the day. And really that's what productivity is to me. I mentioned at the start, how productivity is such a loaded term.

[00:52:57] Everybody has a different idea that comes to [00:53:00] mind when they hear the word. But to me, it's just accomplishing what you intend to so few and few, and tend to have a nice relaxing day on a beach and do nothing at all. And then you do, I would argue that you're perfectly productive and the same is true.

[00:53:13] If you intend to, finish coding a piece of software and ship it that day, and then you do I would argue you're perfectly productive there too, but it does have to start with that intention. And one tactic that's worked for me in terms of. Aligning myself to that definition of the word productivity is to make an accomplishments list.

[00:53:33] And so throughout the day, whenever I ship a project, whenever I reach a milestone with something, I add that to my accomplishments list. And that's simply the tactic that I use. And at the end of the week, I look over this accomplishments list and kind of pat myself on the back and say, man, you accomplish quite a bit.

[00:53:51] It's not that you were busy, you were actually productive. And so I find the accomplishments list works and the rule of three is really powerful [00:54:00] for that intentionality because over time, first year overshoot, we, in my case I would say, okay, I want to write a thousand words today.

[00:54:07] And I wrote 1500. Then I say, okay, I want to write 2000 words. Then I wrote 1500 but over time, Adjust to understanding the how much time, energy, and attention you have everyday in order to get stuff done and aligning yourself to that. Through the accomplishments list, I find merely held our own expectations of yourself and so much of, having low expectations for yourself, man, there's no better way to be separate.

[00:54:31] You are low, you have to bar lowest time. So you can just step over it every day. It's man, I am the greatest, 

[00:54:36] Mike Parsons: so much inside of that, mark isn't there. I will admit that like the desire to be productive and to get positive outcomes drives me, but it becomes such a default behavior. That then what happens is that you're unable [00:55:00] to be slow.

[00:55:04] Still or quiet because you've almost gear yourself up to be in perpetual motion. And it's like all about understanding that in order to go fast, you need to go slow. And I think this is the bigger thing is that we almost get addicted to appearing busy, but sometimes we go deeper than that.

[00:55:30] And we just become busy because it becomes addictive or it becomes default status. And no wonder everyone gets tired and there's more burnouts and, mental wellness challenges than ever before, because we're all being, our dopamine has been primed every second with no vacations alerts and news.

[00:55:51] I would even go this far to say we're all very conscious. No COVID war in Europe and all these different things, but these things have been [00:56:00] happening for millennia mark. But the thing is we know more about them now than ever. We're aware of things happening in the back of Africa or in the Northern parts of Europe and everything in between.

[00:56:14] We are so bombarded. Our attention is so primed. We are then propelled into this busy-ness cycle. And the greatest beauty of it is that if you truly want hyper-focus, you need scatter focus. If you want to go fast, you need to go 

[00:56:29] Mark Pearson Freeland: slow. Yeah, I it's, it brings me back to some of the work of Eckart Tali, which we did in show 123.

[00:56:40] How you find that inner peace by just being in the moment. And for me, if I'm working and I've got all my devices distracting me, that's pulling me out of that moment. It's pulling me out of being present and there's concepts very important. I think at least [00:57:00] for me, when I have lots of notifications, it is somewhat addictive because you do feel as though you are needed, you're, our people are asking for my opinion.

[00:57:10] That's great. I don't want to turn that off because it's my ego. That's being fed by these notifications by emails coming in, or what's it going to say now? And it does become addictive because that's obviously the way that they're designed to be isn't it, Google or Instagram. And but I think. That's really the crux that Chris bade is really bringing to the focus here, which is just because you're getting lots of notifications, just because you have loads of emails that you should be replying to.

[00:57:38] It doesn't mean that you should be doing them because it's distracting you from that real core work that actually you only you can provide. And I love that ignition in that final clip, which is calling out whether you're coding the cell, sending out a letter code, or whether you're sitting on the beach, if your goal is to be if your goal of [00:58:00] productivity is just to be there, spend time with your family, read a book, relax.

[00:58:05] That's just as productive as sitting there, sending out that code or sending out those emails that admission I think is such a huge takeaway for me. 

[00:58:14] Mike Parsons: We need to give ourselves permission. Permission 

[00:58:18] Mark Pearson Freeland: exactly the intention to permit yourself, to either allocate a couple of hours to go deep into a new keynote that you're building or whether it's just two hours to take a breather, go for a walk or a run, read a book go to the beach, whatever it might be to.

[00:58:36] Rest and recuperate, those avenues of productivity are balanced. That's a big thing that I, for one haven't necessarily done before, I'd always prioritize work productivity is more important, but I don't think that is indeed true after going into the work for Chris Bailey 

[00:58:54] Mike Parsons: well said. And so would you say that scatter focus is the big takeaway for you mark?[00:59:00] 

[00:59:00] Mark Pearson Freeland: I think it is the idea of and I understood and appreciated the value of walking around. It's the water cooler, isn't it, walking to get lunch, whatever it is, any excuse to just get out of the house and get away from the computer, walk the dog, whatever it is that allows you to rest your mind, to reset and create those new signups is.

[00:59:21] So for me, it's scatter focused scatterbrain is the takeaway for me from hyper-focus. Mike, what about you? What have you learned. Oh, 

[00:59:31] Mike Parsons: geez. This one is hard because it's touching on a bunch of things I really enjoy, I think prioritizing deep work and non deep work with equal importance.

[00:59:48] Yeah, that's good. So that you achieve that balance, but if. 

[00:59:55] Mark Pearson Freeland: I think it's really all about balance. Isn't it? Hyper-focus it's [01:00:00] about balancing what strives you or gets you going forward, but also with an emission that sometimes that strive, you need to take a breather, take a break. It's about balancing it, isn't it?

[01:00:12] Yeah, 

[01:00:12] Mike Parsons: it is. And balance could be the secret sauce to not only being productive, but many more things in life, but perhaps being the best version of yourself and that mark is what we are here to do. So thank you to you, mark, for joining me on this journey into hyper-focus and thank you to you. Our listeners and our members here on show 182 of the moonshots podcast.

[01:00:38] We went deep into the work of Chris Bailey. Hyper-focus that's right. How to work less and achieve more. And it starts with our greatest enemy and our greatest friend, the screen it's harder than ever to focus. So we have to take control of this situation, ladies and gentlemen, as if we don't the screen well, and we need to [01:01:00] pour ourselves into the magic three of hyper-focus time, attention, and energy, and to offset that we need it's partner scatter focus, where you loosen up, go for a walk and let the creativity come to you equally as effective as your hyper-focus.

[01:01:18] And then we go about our day to set our intentions of the moment in which we are facing. We want to get the job done. We want to get jobs that matter done, and we want to avoid it. Every single step, being busy for busy sake. Get rid of that. Allow time for you to settle and work on the things that matter.

[01:01:42] And you will be able to hyper-focus, you will be able to work less and achieve more. You will be able to be the best version of yourself. And that is exactly what we're about here on the moonshots podcast. That's a wrap.