BookGyan — Understanding ‘Scatterfocus’ and it’s benefits
I have read some really amazing books in 2023, and felt I am bound to forget all that those books have taught me if I don’t do these two tasks-
- If I don’t go back to revisit some of the best advice on those pages of wisdom.
- If I don’t write all of it down in my own words.
So with that, I am starting a series of blog posts of all the lessons learned, with some added personal notes from my mind. I am doing this primarily for myself, but since it’s out there as a blog post, everyone’s welcome to read and comment.
I am going to start with the book ‘Hyperfocus’ by Chris Bailey.
This book first explains the dual nature of ‘attention’ before it moves into advice for how to regain your ability to focus in a world brimming with distractions. The two modes of attention — Hyperfocus and Scatterfocus are the key to understanding this. The former lets you focus on a single task, while the later lets your mind wander freely while working on something. Mastering both modes will optimise attention and productivity.
For me, Hyperfocus was easy to understand. But the term ‘Scatterfocus’ was new, so I dug deeper to comprehend this better.
Intentional mind-wandering — letting your mind roam free without any point of focus — will actually improve your ability to focus your attention. That sounds pretty self contradictory, right ? Why would I let my mind wander, when I am trying to learn how to focus instead ? Mind-wandering, or Scatterfocus, as Bailey puts it, is essential for a few things. It lets us think a lot about our future, increases our creativity, and best of all — it lets us rest.
But how do you do mind-wandering ? It could just mean getting away from your smartphone for a while and spend some time alone. This has to be intentional. We all do unintentional mind wandering every day — that’s called day dreaming and it has zero benefits. It might have all the imagination and ideas, but you don’t remember most of it. With intentional mind-wandering, the thoughts you have need to be paid attention to, and need to be written down, then we can reap the maximum benefit out of this. With intentional mind wandering, boredom also doesn’t come into play.
Now I wouldn’t believe this unless I tried it. So I did. Trying to hyperfocus on a task at hand, for eg. a project plan or a design document, and forcing myself to think about say my individual learning goals for the near future, was not at all easy. The usual situation we are all in, is that we are bombarded by too many courses/books to learn and feel overwhelmed about making an individual development plan.
When I tried Scatterfocus mode, I deliberately left a lot of working memory in my mind, and let it wander. I was able to connect a lot of diverse thoughts in my mind over the next few minutes, and when i started writing them down, I had awesome clarity regarding what were the topics of my interest, what were the best resources available, and the order in which I can approach this plan for organised learning. I was even able to write down some alternate plans incase I have unforeseen tasks on family end which might need my full attention, causing a disruption in the learning plan. This has worked out pretty decently multiple times for me now.
Scatterfocus and Hyperfocus are two essential modes of attention we need to master. Both have their own benefits, and they complement each other. Unintentional mind wandering during a hyperfocus session just spoils the whole day. When we practice intentional mind wandering, it solves this problem. Suddenly your hyperfocus sessions also get more productive with less scope for getting distracted. So in the end you will attain a skill level where :
‘You focus when you need to focus, and let your mind wander when you want it to wander’ !
