Leo Babauta is doing it. Tim Ferriss is doing it. Even Seth Godin has been doing it. I’m talking about hyper-focusing, a technique that can turn you into an insanely productive, crazily over-delivering, and absurdly successful, go-getting maniac.
Project Work on Steroids
Hyper-focusing is a technique designed to clear out all distractions, to minimize the costs that occur from switching between tasks, and to lift your motivation to the stars by focusing exclusively and excessively on one single goal over a limited period of time.
Instead of evenly mixing web design, content building, and guest posting while building my blog, I focused almost completely on web design first, then on content building, and now I’m writing guest posts like a lunatic.
Instead of halfheartedly launching his first big business project after hours, the great Seth Godin skipped his university lectures and got the venture off the ground in what he calls a “sprint”.
Instead of studying French for 10 years at night school, you could move to France for one year and dedicate the whole of your days to learning the language.
Besides the advantages you get from your increased motivation and improved focus, you’ll also discover that concentrating on one thing only — and doing an unreasonably over-the-top job of it — often yields exponentially greater results.
But that’s still not all! The benefits of hyper-focusing go far beyond “just” super-charging your productivity. By immersing your whole self into the pursuit of one single goal, you create a whole new life experience — one that you’ll never again want to miss.
Quick-Start Guide
Hyper-focussing is mentally and emotionally challenging, but it’s not a terribly complicated thing to do. Nevertheless, there are a couple of guidelines you should follow to make sure your periods of abnormal focus become a ridiculous success:
1) Plan Meticulously
Limiting yourself to one goal in any given time-frame means going all out. If that goal later proves to have been the wrong thing to pursue at that particular moment, you’ll have wasted a lot of time.
That’s why it’s critical that you plan the sequence of your hyper-focus periods in advance. For example, it wouldn’t have made much sense for me to start guest posting like a mad-man before I had even set up a blog with good content myself.
2) Make Your Priorities a Priority
Hyper-focusing isn’t hyper-focusing if you don’t hyper-focus. While this may sound like the random utterance of a crazy person, it is, in fact, the very foundation of successfully applying this productivity technique.
You need to make the pursuit of your one goal your absolute top priority. Reserve the biggest and most productive chunk of your day for it, and treat this time as holy. All the maintenance work you must do to keep your life from falling apart should be organized around your priority tasks and ideally be dealt with later in the day.
If you don’t do this, then you don’t hyper-focus.
3) Allow for Relaxation
Throwing yourself into a project like there’s no tomorrow is awesome, but exhausting. Make sure to plan for a brief holiday after each period of hyper-focus. That way, you’ll be able to recover from your phase of supernatural productivity and be ready to tackle the next big thing full throttle as well.
4) Exercise
Hyper-focusing requires that you approach a specific set of tasks with the mindset of a fanatic, and then add a pinch of obsession. To save you from losing your mind, schedule at least two sessions of physical exercise per week. They will allow you to let off steam and gain a fresh perspective from time to time.
Enjoy the Ride
Granted, hyper-focusing is not for everyone. You need that touch of madness, the uncontrollable craving to fall in love with a specific goal, and the outrageous ability to abandon it without shedding a tear when it’s time to move on to the next step.
But if that sounds like you, lean into it, and enjoy the roller coaster ride. There’s nothing like it.
Untemplaters, have you ever tried hyper-focusing? What are the biggest distractions you struggle with now?
Lucas,
Very interesting idea!
Now … I’m just trying to figure out when I could actually implement this. My time is now pretty much tied with family and only certain dedicated blocks of time for athletics and blogging 🙂
Cheers,
Timo
Thanks Timo – and granted, this technique is hard to implement with a new-born baby 🙂
I didn’t know it but I do this with most of my goals. I become so consumed by a goal that my mind can’t stop focusing on it until it is reached. The downside, for me tends to be fatigue. Hyper-focusing is draining at times, like you mentioned. It is however, rewarding.
Hi Ralph, yeah it really is a bit like getting drunk, isn’t it? 😉
I tend to do this too and find it very rewarding. Whether it’s redoing our kitchen or finding scholarships for our kids, it’s the focus that gets results!
Maggie, I’m actually crazy about redoing or tidying up things at home 🙂 There are few things I enjoy more than focussing a whole day on improving our home. (often, this means tidying up, and, my favourite: throwing lots of stuff away)
Thanks, Jen. Yes, try it! This method is hugely motivating because you see success in one area very fast. For this reason, even chronic multi-taskers can achieve good results with it.
Great post! I’m a chronic multi-tasker, maybe I have ADD or something. I’m just always distracted, doing numerous tasks at the same time and switch focus constantly. I’ve heard about this (or something similar) before and it sounded rather intriguing. Your post actually makes it sound more exciting, so I think I’ll give it a shot. It would awesome if I could achieve more with better results.
This could be a good anti-dote for ADD that this generation seems to be suffering from!
Well I guess if someone seriously suffers from ADD then medical treatment will be required but yeah I get your point 🙂
Very interesting concept. However, it makes so much sense, especially when you talk about immersing yourself in France vs. learning French for many years in North America!
I have found that if I section off a certain amount of time and dedicate my purpose to ONLY that purpose, I am so much more productive. I have always thought of myself as a multi tasker, but I know that if I keep my brain on just one task, I will get so much more done. For instance, I will go on a writing binge and refrain from checking email or anything, and I will get so much more written.
Great post.
Thanks! Writing is an excellent example. Focus and absolute single-tasking can increase our speed hugely here! I usually disconnect my phone and internet connection before I start writing.
I’m pretty good at planning most of the time, but need to do a better job at minimizing distractions. My thoughts wander off a lot of times and it’s easy to lose my train of thought when I should be focusing on the task at hand and clearing my head of the rest. Meditating before a big project seems to help me and I should do it more often so that I feel more grounded and less rushed, making it easier to concentrate.
Sidney, have you tried exercising to improve focus? A lot of people find it easier to focus during the day if they exercise in the morning.
Don’t overdo it though – if we exercise too hard in the morning, we’ll get really tired during the day.
I’m always rushing out the door during the week so morning exercise is usually tough for me. I love hiking in the mornings on the weekends though, and I always feel good afterwards. It’s definitely a good way to clear my head!
I never thought I was hyper-focused! My approach is similar without the labels. All my goals have detailed plans that are monitored daily, weekly, monthly etc. Each week, I check my progress and adjust my effort for any shortfall. I stay focused by keeping the goal in front of me daily. My monitoring takes little or no time and I have time for exercising, relaxation and many other things.
krantcents, thank for your comment! Creating plans and monitoring your progress is definitely a great way to boost your productivity. Far too few people do this! Glad to hear you have time for exercising, relaxation and other stuff too 🙂