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Srini Pillay
May 12, 2017
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 m lange 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.
Srini Pillay, M.D. is an executive coach and CEO of NeuroBusiness Group. He is
also a technology innovator and entrepreneur in the health and leadership
development sectors, and an award-winning author. His latest book is Tinker,
Dabble, Doodle, Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind. He is also a
part-time Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and teaches in the
Executive Education Programs at Harvard Business School and Duke Corporate
Education, and is on internationally recognized think tanks.