Stop Wasting Time: If You Can't Focus, Read This and Never Lose Focus Again!!

Why attention is called the new currency in today's time?

Notice, nowadays everyone just wants your attention. News anchors scream in the news to grab your attention. Politicians want your attention so that you can vote for them. A lot of big companies are fighting because they know, once they grab your attention after that, the probability is very high that buy their product, and maybe you vote for them to watch their news channel and that's why attention is a very valuable thing in today's world.

In fact, according to the research of Market-drive, 53% of users abandon the website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.

Amazon did research in which they came to know if there is any delay in their website then they can lose $1.6 billion yearly.

That's why you need to learn, how to value your attention.

You think if a random person comes to you and asks you to give 1k rupees and he won't give you that money.

Then would you give him money?

Not. Because you understand the value of money.

While on the other hand, if a random person grabs your attention for unnecessary things, you instantly give him your attention. Because you don't value your attention.

Whereas through this blog, I will teach you to increase the value of your focus, and how you can pay attention to the right things. We'll talk about that thing with the help of an amazing book named 'Hyperfocus'. Because the truth is, like you and me, author Chris Bailey was also upset.

Because he wasn't able to focus on anything. He was not able to pay attention on the right things. He says, he had got trapped in a series of screens. For example, he says he used to work on Macbook the whole day. And then as soon as he used to go to home he used to chill on his phone. After that, he used to switch off his alarm, which is his phone. He used to keep checking the time on his smartwatch. While travelling to the office, he used to watch billboards.

Now what are all these things?

All these things are a series of screens. His focus was on numerous screens, one after one, which was snatching his attention from him.

Due to this, the author says, his productivity and creativity were declining.

Which he didn't like. So he decided to tackle this problem. Will find a solution.

He wasn't a big researcher and scientist himself, but he knew that many researchers and scientists have already done research on this topic.

And if he meets them and learns then he would be able to deal with the problem of not being able to focus. That's why he started doing research. His research was of more than 25k words which have helped him a lot. And based on this research, he wrote a book named 'Hyperfocus'. With the help of this book.

I am going to tell you three such ways which will increase your focus. Five situations in which we get distracted the most, I'll tell you the methods to deal with them. And there would be! many more interesting things. But before that, we need to understand where we should focus. For that, we have to understand the four types of tasks.

A task which we do daily. The author says, there are four types of tasks, which you will watch on screen, which you can put in these four boxes, with the help of 2 axes.

One axis if of productive and unproductive, and the second axis if of attractive and unattractive. What the author says, the attention of maximum people goes to distracting activities like using Instagram, watching reels, shorts, and Netflix. Or many times their focus goes on non-productive and non-attractive things. Like spending time with such people whom you don't like. Whereas on the other hand, apart from both quadrants, the author says, your maximum time should go on such things

which are not attractive, productive or attractive and productive.

Now what comes in not attractive, productive? Like managing your finances,

paying bills, all such things, which are necessary activities. The author says we do a maximum of four tasks in a day.

What are those four tasks?

These four tasks are made with the help of two axes.

The first axis is of unproductive and productive work, and the second axis is not attractive and attractive work.

And four different activities are made up of these four. The first activity, which is not attractive but productive, which the author calls Necessary activity.

For example, managing finances preparing for meetings, and shopping of groceries.

The second activity, which is attractive and productive also. Like reading books, journalising, doing exercise or those things which take you towards your goal.

The first activity, which is neither productive nor attractive. Like spending time with people whom you don't like. And last activity is Distracting activities. All these activities are attractive but unproductive. Like scrolling Instagram, shorts, reels Netflix, and all those activities which distract you from your goal. The author says the time of maximum people goes into distracting and unnecessary activities.

Whereas if you have to move forward in life, then you should focus and meaningful activities and necessary activities. You should pay attention there.

Now how can you do this?

The problem is, nowadays we are living on auto-pilot mode. You notice, and there is also research behind it, that we are unconsciously living 40% of our day. How many times it happens that I use my mobile for some work, but our focus shifts to reels, shorts and such unproductive activities? And I am so sure, it must have happened with you. The reason behind this, author tells because we are living our life on autopilot mode, whereas if we have to come out of this auto-pilot mode, then there is a very interesting lesson, which the author shares with us and is important to do, to have low stimulation. The author says, you must have thought that your brain is very much distracted, but in reality, the author says, according to research our brain is overstimulated not distracted. The urge we get, like checking Instagram, all of us have this urge. Our brain is hard-wired behind all these things.

You notice our brain loves new things, new experiences like travelling etc. Why?

There is a reason behind all this and that is 'novelty bias'. This thing is not that much bad. But the problem is people, many years ago to satisfy their mentality of curiosity used to read books, novels used to play games, in which they used to spend hours. And due to this, their attention span and ability to focus was very high. Studies show that our attention span is dipping year by year. Because instead of books, TVs, movies 3 hours long movies, our focus is on reels, memes, and short format content, which keeps giving novelty to our brain, due to which dopamine gets released, and because of this, you can say, we have become addicted, to consume those things, and I also have this problem and you must have noticed in yourself.

So again, how to tackle it?

To tackle it, we have to take our focus to high level. Chris Belly says, if you have to do highly focused and deep work then you have to do practice of low stimulation. Which means you have to do boring work purposefully. Although we run away from boring work as much as we can, if you want to come out of this addiction cycle, then you have to do boring things purposefully. For example, do you know what the author had done? He read the terms and conditions of iTunes for 1 hour. And then he started counting zeros in ten thousand digits of the pie. And then he counted the no. of rice in 250gms rice. And similarly, he did so many things in one month. After this, he realizes that his attention span and creativity had increased a lot. So the first important thing which I think you should do is practice low stimulation. Go and read books. If you feel bored, still read. If you can't do that, watch book summaries because this is absolutely true.

Nowadays people click on videos, but not even 10%-20% of people watch videos till the end. If not anything, then at least you can take this challenge. Video this video till the end, and if you are watching other videos if you are getting bored, still watch that video till the end. You don't need to do it always, but if you do this thing for practice, then it will help you a lot. I'll give you a playlist, which I think, if you see, you can get bored but that playlist will help to bring transformation in your life. I'll give that link in I button and description. After this video, watch that playlist also. That is the first thing. Now what second thing can do you? Well, the author calls this second thing the most precious commodity.

According to Timothy Wilson, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, a human brain absorbs 11 billion bits of information in a second. But, out of them, it can process only 40 bits of information. And this tells us that our brain keeps limited attention space. Attention space means the ability to process that thing by focusing on it. And author explains it with the help of an example of RAM. The author says, when there is more RAM in your smartphone or laptop it can easily process bigger applications, and you don't feel any problems. The phone doesn't lag. But when the RAM space would be less in laptops, mobiles, especially smartphones then big apps doesn't work well. Similarly, the author says that if there would be more attention space in brain then you would be able to do big tasks by focusing well on them. The problem is, nowadays our attention space is very less.

So the question is, how can we increase attention focus?

Well, author says, by doing just one thing you can increase your attention space by 58%. Yes, you heard it right. 58% by doing just one thing. And to be very honest, that is very easy. You love that thing and that is sleeping. Taking enough sleep of 7-8 hours regularly. Now you would say, I love sleeping, I sleep properly, how sleeping anyhow isn't important, rather your sleep cycle is important. Sleeping and waking up on the proper time is very important. Many times, people sleep very late i.e. 3 o'clock or 4 o'clock, and then wake up at 9 AM or 12 AM. They think that they have slept till 12, but if you notice that a person sleeps at 4 o'clock, and wakes up at 10 o'clock, So it is just sleep of 6 hours. You know, the sleep of the last 2 hours, the 7th and 8th hour, that is the most important. Because many times, people get Rem to sleep there. And research tells us that if you don't get rem sleep for some days continuously, then it can lower your mental functioning. If you sleep just for just 6 hours for 10 days continuously, where you don't get rem sleep, the functioning of your brain becomes the same as a man who does not sleep for a night. That's why do this second important thing. The third thing is focusing on scattered focus.

Hyperfocus means focusing on just one thing so that you can perform well, here our brain is very creative, but on the other hand, there is one more mode named scattered focus mode. What does it mean? You must have noticed, when we need some good ideas, no matter how much pressure we put on brains, we don't get good ideas. But when we go to take a bath and sit in the bathroom, then suddenly we get good ideas, and the secret behind it is 'the art of doing nothing', which triggers your creativity many times.

As you must have heard the story of Newton, our Newton brother was thinking about gravity for a long time, and was working, but one day when he was sitting under an apple tree, then when the apple fell on his head, suddenly his creativity increased more, all dots started connecting, about which he was researching. And this is where he was able to understand the concept of gravity well. After this, he was able to make good theories about gravitational force, and similarly, Kapil Sharma says, he gets creative ideas when he sits in his bathroom.

Similarly author says, you should practice scattered practice once in a day. Where you do mindless activities in a day, which doesn't require your creativity, like walking, washing clothes, washing utensils, making food, or do any such activity which doesn't require creativity. At this time, your brain will start connecting the dots and will create some good things, which you won't be able to do by thinking. You can do it smartly, remove distractions, like for example, what author does, he spends time with his wife every Sunday, where he and his wife don't touch the phone whole day. You also can do similar thing. Infact he tells a technique, when you want to spend quality time with a person, at that time you can exchange your mobiles, if you want to do and don't feel any risk. Through this, you would be able to spend quality time with each other. These are the three things which are very simple, and can increase your focus. Then author tells us five times, where our brain wanders the most. First is 'feeling stressed'. When we get stresses because of anything then we try to distract ourselves. If I asks you to do a stressful work, then you would feel like watching reels or doing something else.

Am I right or wrong? Well, how to deal with it?

To deal with it, break the work you are asked to do in small easy tasks, so that there can be a less chaotic environment, and you can work easily. The second is 'feeling good'. You see, whenever you feel bored it's very hard to focus. It becomes very problematic. How to fight that? I've already given its solution in point of 'low stimulation'. If you practice low stimulation, then you would be able to tackle this problem. Third is, dealing with thinking about personal concerns. Many times we get a lot of work, we have to do this and that because of which we start feeling overwhelmed, and we start distracting ourselves with many things. To tackle it, start destroying the open loops formed in your mind. How? Use a calendar, put your tasks in the calendar, make a list of distractions, make a worry list making list, and write things on paper it will help you a lot in dealing with this problem. The fourth is when we get confused in our life. Whether we are doing the right thing or not. Then also we start distracting ourselves. Because many times, its answer can be meaningful and deep. To fix it, start working on your intentions. You can ask WHY questions. Like for example, I want to make videos then why do I want to make videos? Because I want to become a content creator.

Why do I want to become a content creator?

Because by becoming a content creator, I can achieve all such things which I dream about. What think do I dream about? Time freedom, money freedom, location freedom. Why are all these things important? Similarly, focus on your WHY and clear your intentions then this thing also would help you in decreasing distractions. Last incident is when we distract ourselves a lot when we have unused attentional space. Means when we don't have any work. For this time, making a list, setting goals taking tasks to challenge ourselves which are worthwhile, all these things would help you. To summarize, maximum people waste their time on unnecessary activity and distracting activities. Whereas you should make yourself focus on meaningful and necessary activities. Otherwise, someone will take your attention, and for that you can do three things, first, practice low stimulation, then second, focus on deep work, increase your attentional space, for which you just have to sleep properly, and third, practice scattered focus, Where you have to do such things which don't require your creativity. And then I have told you five times, due to which you get distracted, and how to tackle them.

Many such interesting things are told in this book. First of all, I would like to congratulate you if you have watched this video till here, means that you are already working on your focus building, so, congratulations on that. And you have completed one challenge. Now let me give you one more challenge. Immerse yourself in one thing. And try to do that thing for some hours, at least. This thing will help in increasing your focus, trust me. That's it for now, thanks for reading. See you in the next book summary.