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teelock's review
5.0
Meta-awareness:
Becoming aware of what you are thinking about.
A useful skill for managing your attention and thoughts.
Better you get at this, the better you become at bringing your attention back to your intended area of focus when it wanders.
Noticing what is in the attentional space makes you a better thinker and problem-solver.
A study found that people asked to solve a mystery while reading a detective novel – those whose minds wandered consciously solved it more successfully than those who did not pay attention to where their minds wandered.
Becoming aware of what you are thinking about.
A useful skill for managing your attention and thoughts.
Better you get at this, the better you become at bringing your attention back to your intended area of focus when it wanders.
Noticing what is in the attentional space makes you a better thinker and problem-solver.
A study found that people asked to solve a mystery while reading a detective novel – those whose minds wandered consciously solved it more successfully than those who did not pay attention to where their minds wandered.
muthul's review
5.0
I took up reading self help books as a part of my birthday resolution last November. I have started many books, but none of them were able to hold my attention long enough, for me to finish the book. This book, aptly dealing with attention space, was up for the task.
Short Summary :
This book can be separated into three parts. The first part has two chapters, Chapter 1 deals with the autopilot mode and why does our brain wander off into this productivity blackhole. And Chapter 2 deals with attention space and the science behind it.
Part 2 is about HyperFocus. And this being the longest and the best part of the book, does justice to its name. This part starts with explaining what is hyper focus and the steps to achieve hyper focus. A short summary of the steps would be :
1. Setting Intentions
2. Removing Distrations
3. Focus
4. Refocus, when your mind wanders away.
What follows is a practical session of tips/ideas that can help you achieve each of the above steps. I really loved the way this part of the book was written, with practical information and real life incidents, especially for working professionals.
The Final Part is about scatter focus. I kind of got pissed of when the author jumped ship and started talking about scatter focus. I just wanted the previous part to either go on or the book to end there. But the author proved me wrong when we went further into this part. This part explains in detail about scatter focus, how is it different from random mind wanderings and why is it of as beneficial as hyper focus. If hyper focus helps us to be more productive, scatter focus can help us to be more creative.
In the last chapter, the author does his best to wrap this neat little bundle of knowledge with insights into happiness, and how happiness affects our productivity and creativity.
So that was the short summary of the book. Now there were many small information placed strategically all through out the book to help us follow the guideline mentioned in the book. for example all of us have read about how to consume information from books, but seldom follow it. Here at the beginning of the book the author drops this information which kind of pushed me into start taking notes for each chapter, which in turn helped me to start following the ideas given in the book.
So what can this book help you with? i set three goals at the start of the book, they are :
Spend more time intentionally.
Hold focus longer in one sitting .
Catch my mind faster when it wanders away.
This book already helped me to improve in the three goals i set and much much more.
Definitely would recommend this!
Short Summary :
This book can be separated into three parts. The first part has two chapters, Chapter 1 deals with the autopilot mode and why does our brain wander off into this productivity blackhole. And Chapter 2 deals with attention space and the science behind it.
Part 2 is about HyperFocus. And this being the longest and the best part of the book, does justice to its name. This part starts with explaining what is hyper focus and the steps to achieve hyper focus. A short summary of the steps would be :
1. Setting Intentions
2. Removing Distrations
3. Focus
4. Refocus, when your mind wanders away.
What follows is a practical session of tips/ideas that can help you achieve each of the above steps. I really loved the way this part of the book was written, with practical information and real life incidents, especially for working professionals.
The Final Part is about scatter focus. I kind of got pissed of when the author jumped ship and started talking about scatter focus. I just wanted the previous part to either go on or the book to end there. But the author proved me wrong when we went further into this part. This part explains in detail about scatter focus, how is it different from random mind wanderings and why is it of as beneficial as hyper focus. If hyper focus helps us to be more productive, scatter focus can help us to be more creative.
In the last chapter, the author does his best to wrap this neat little bundle of knowledge with insights into happiness, and how happiness affects our productivity and creativity.
So that was the short summary of the book. Now there were many small information placed strategically all through out the book to help us follow the guideline mentioned in the book. for example all of us have read about how to consume information from books, but seldom follow it. Here at the beginning of the book the author drops this information which kind of pushed me into start taking notes for each chapter, which in turn helped me to start following the ideas given in the book.
So what can this book help you with? i set three goals at the start of the book, they are :
Spend more time intentionally.
Hold focus longer in one sitting .
Catch my mind faster when it wanders away.
This book already helped me to improve in the three goals i set and much much more.
Definitely would recommend this!
pbokelly's review
3.0
A couple reviews to consider:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/books/hyperfocus-chris-bailey-attention-distraction.html
https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/hyperfocus
Author summaries/snapshots:
https://hbr.org/2018/08/4-strategies-for-overcoming-distraction
https://alifeofproductivity.com/three-take-aways-from-hyperfocus-the-book/
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/books/hyperfocus-chris-bailey-attention-distraction.html
https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/hyperfocus
Author summaries/snapshots:
https://hbr.org/2018/08/4-strategies-for-overcoming-distraction
https://alifeofproductivity.com/three-take-aways-from-hyperfocus-the-book/
stefanieh's review
4.0
I'm not generally one for productivity books but this one is a good one. The book is broken up into two parts. The first half is about hyperfocus--how to get rid of all the distractions and really focus on a task. Multitasking is a lie. If you want to truly focus and get something done, it has to be just that thing. Bailey makes all sorts of great suggestions on how to do this based on both his personal experience and research and honest to goodness science. From setting intentions and turning off alerts and notifications on your phone/computer to meditation and the limits of just how long a person can actually focus (90 minutes max).
The second half of the book is on scattterfocus. This is not mindlessness, but intentional unfocused time. This promotes creativity and increases your ability to focus. From daydreaming to journaling to doing a habitual task like going for a walk or washing dishes, these sorts of things allow our minds to rest and mull things over. It is times like these we make connections between all the "dots of information" we have collected which promotes creativity and problem-solving as well as memory formation and the building of expertise in a subject. This part of the book too is based on science.
I have begun putting a few of Bailey's suggestions into practice and they work a little too well at time. I do not recommend hyperfocus or scatterfocus while riding on public transit. While practicing hyperfocus I missed my metro rail stop. While practicing scatterfocus I managed to take the wrong metro rail train and it took me three stops to realize it. So if you are going to read this and begin practicing it, just know there is a right place and right time to employ these stratgies and public transit is not one of them!
The second half of the book is on scattterfocus. This is not mindlessness, but intentional unfocused time. This promotes creativity and increases your ability to focus. From daydreaming to journaling to doing a habitual task like going for a walk or washing dishes, these sorts of things allow our minds to rest and mull things over. It is times like these we make connections between all the "dots of information" we have collected which promotes creativity and problem-solving as well as memory formation and the building of expertise in a subject. This part of the book too is based on science.
I have begun putting a few of Bailey's suggestions into practice and they work a little too well at time. I do not recommend hyperfocus or scatterfocus while riding on public transit. While practicing hyperfocus I missed my metro rail stop. While practicing scatterfocus I managed to take the wrong metro rail train and it took me three stops to realize it. So if you are going to read this and begin practicing it, just know there is a right place and right time to employ these stratgies and public transit is not one of them!
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