The ability to focus is an important driver of excellence.
Focused techniques such as to-do lists,
timetables, and calendar reminders all help people to stay on task. Few would argue with that,
and even if they did, there is evidence to support the idea that resisting distraction and staying
present have benefits: practicing mindfulness for 10 minutes a day, for example, can enhance
leadership effectiveness by helping you become more able to regulate your emotions and make
sense of past experiences. Yet as helpful as focus can be, there’s also a downside to focus as it is
commonly viewed.
The problem is that excessive focus exhausts the focus circuits in your brain. It can drain your
energy and make you lose self-control. This energy drain can also make you more impulsive and
less helpful. As a result, decisions are poorly thought-out, and you become less collaborative.
So what do we do then? Focus or unfocus?
In keeping with recent research, both focus and unfocus are vital. The brain operates optimally
when it toggles between focus and unfocus, allowing you to develop resilience, enhance
creativity, and make better decisions too.
When you unfocus, you engage a brain circuit called the “default mode network.” Abbreviated as
the DMN, we used to think of this circuit as the Do Mostly Nothing circuit because it only came
on when you stopped focusing effortfully. Yet, when “at rest”, this circuit uses 20% of the
body’s energy (compared to the comparatively small 5% that any effort will require).
The DMN needs this energy because it is doing anything but resting. Under the brain’s conscious
radar, it activates old memories, goes back and forth between the past, present, and future, and
recombines different ideas. Using this new and previously inaccessible data, you develop
enhanced self-awareness and a sense of personal relevance. And you can imagine creative
solutions or predict the future, thereby leading to better decision-making too. The DMN also
helps you tune into other people’s thinking, thereby improving team understanding and cohesion.
There are many simple and effective ways to activate this circuit in the course of a day.
Using positive constructive daydreaming (PCD): PCD is a type of mind-wandering different
from slipping into a daydream or guiltily rehashing worries. When you build it into your day
deliberately, it can boost your creativity, strengthen your leadership ability, and also-re-energize
the brain. To start PCD, you choose a low-key activity such as knitting, gardening or casual
reading, then wander into the recesses of your mind. But unlike slipping into a daydream or
guilty-dysphoric daydreaming, you might first imagine something playful and wishful—like
running through the woods, or lying on a yacht. Then you swivel your attention from the external
world to the internal space of your mind with this image in mind while still doing the low-key
activity.
Studied for decades by Jerome Singer, PCD activates the DMN and metaphorically changes the
silverware that your brain uses to find information. While focused attention is like a fork—
picking up obvious conscious thoughts that you have, PCD commissions a different set of
silverware—a spoon for scooping up the delicious mélange of flavors of your identity (the scent
of your grandmother, the feeling of satisfaction with the first bite of apple-pie on a crisp fall
day), chopsticks for connecting ideas across your brain (to enhance innovation), and a marrow
spoon for getting into the nooks and crannies of your brain to pick up long-lost memories that are
a vital part of your identity. In this state, your sense of “self” is enhanced—which, according to
Warren Bennis, is the essence of leadership. I call this the psychological center of gravity, a
grounding mechanism (part of your mental “six-pack”) that helps you enhance your agility and
manage change more effectively too.
Taking a nap: In addition to building in time for PCD, leaders can also consider authorized
napping. Not all naps are the same. When your brain is in a slump, your clarity and creativity are
compromised. After a 10-minute nap, studies show that you become much clearer and more
alert. But if it’s a creative task you have in front of you, you will likely need a full 90 minutes for
more complete brain refreshing. Your brain requires this longer time to make more associations,
and dredge up ideas that are in the nooks and crannies of your memory network.
Pretending to be someone else: When you’re stuck in a creative process, unfocus may also
come to the rescue when you embody and live out an entirely different personality. In 2016,
educational psychologists, Denis Dumas and Kevin Dunbar found that people who try to solve
creative problems are more successful if they behave like an eccentric poet than a rigid librarian.
Given a test in which they have to come up with as many uses as possible for any object (e.g. a
brick) those who behave like eccentric poets have superior creative performance. This finding
holds even if the same person takes on a different identity.
When in a creative deadlock, try this exercise of embodying a different identity. It will likely get
you out of your own head, and allow you to think from another person’s perspective. I call this
psychological halloweenism.
For years, focus has been the venerated ability amongst all abilities. Since we spend 46.9% of
our days with our minds wandering away from a task at hand, we crave the ability to keep it
fixed and on task. Yet, if we built PCD, 10- and 90- minute naps, and psychological
halloweenism into our days, we would likely preserve focus for when we need it, and use it
much more efficiently too. More importantly, unfocus will allow us to update information in the
brain, giving us access to deeper parts of ourselves and enhancing our agility, creativity and
decision-making too.
