Use Your Hyperfocus to Accomplish More in Astonishingly Little Time with guest expert Chris Bailey

Chris Bailey, New York Times Bestselling Author

Chris Bailey and Bill Ringle discuss how hyperfocus can help you stay on track, grow your business faster, and get more done in a shorter workday.

>>> Visit MyQuestforTheBest.com for complete show notes and more expert advice and inspiring stories to propel your small business growth.

Interview Insights

Top Takeaways from this Interview

Multitasking isn't always undesirable or ineffective once you hack the myth.Being less stimulated allows time to rest, wonder, and think strategically about what you want to create.Your ability to control your attention is directly related to the quality of your life (and accomplishments...)When you expect your colleagues to be focused 100% of the time, you can expect new ideas 0% of the time.Email isn't evil in itself, you just have to regain control of it. #emailsprints

Read the Show Notes from this Episode

2:10 About looking up to Steve Jobs. “He inspired me most with how he speaks.”

3:05 The specialness of the tinkering mindset

3:49 “It was the way that [Jobs] communicated things that I loved so much.”

4:10 “You can’t doubt vision.”

5:20 “Our minds are so complex, we have to understand them because they’re the mechanism by which we run companies, by which we run our lives and make decisions.”

6:06 “It’s very easy to come into this subject of focus with a lot of preconceptions.”

6:37 Common misconceptions about focus and thought processes.

6:42 “Research shows that being interrupted is one of the best things that can happen for us and for our team.”

7:35 Case study of a team of engineers - “Interruption is the process by which collaboration happens.”

9:04 “I think the most important context in regard to focus on a team level is the breakdown of how much of the work that the team does is a) collaborative or b) focused-work.”

10:07 Analysis of news and how it drives focus

12:15 “If you’re doing work that’s focused, find an office where you can focus on that work.”

14:10 “50-60% of my work is focused and 40-50% of it is collaborative.”

14:56 Why it’s important to schedule in focus time for yourself. “It’s how the important stuff gets done.”

15:24 Chris’s focus rituals.

16:39 “You ask a lot of people where they are the most productive and few people say the office.”

17:18 “In any one moment of the day either you’re focused on something or your mind is wandering, you can’t be focused and wandering at the same time.”

17:45 “Most of the time we’re unfocused, we’re unfocused against our will.”

18:45 Why a wandering mind provides the perfect chance for brilliant ideas to form.”

19:13 “When we’re focused, we’re moving our work forward.”

19:44 “Managing our attention is something that we should do because we’re able to achieve a nicer and more deliberate balance of these two modes, once that’s productive, one that’s creative, one that’s about focusing, one that’s about wandering.”

21:47 The peril of focusing all day long.

22:17 “If someone’s connected 100% of the time, they’re going to be focused 100% of the time and no ideas will ever come to them.

23:12 “We’re more focused than we have to be.”

23:44 “We think about our goals 14 times as much when our mind is wandering.”

24:52 “We need to see email differently.”

25:32 “The average office worker checks their email 88 times over the course of a day.”

26:03 Strategies for dealing with email management

27:57 Lightning Round

Expert Bio

Chris Bailey is a productivity expert, and the internationally bestselling author of The Productivity Project, which has been published in eleven languages. His second book, Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction, was published in seven languages. Chris writes about productivity at Alifeofproductivity.com, and speaks to organizations around the globe on how they can become more productive, without hating the process.

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