Limitless - Jim Kwik Page 0,68

multitasking is a grossly inefficient way to get anything done. If at all feasible, allow yourself to do whatever you’re doing to the exclusion of everything else. If you’re on the phone, don’t scroll through social media at the same time. If you’re making breakfast, don’t also work on your to-do list for the day. By doing one thing at a time, your concentration “muscle” will become incredibly strong, and your focus will reach limitless levels.

Another key to boosting your concentration is de-cluttering your environment. A Princeton University study found that, “Multiple stimuli present in the visual field at the same time compete for neural representation by mutually suppressing their evoked activity throughout the visual cortex, providing a neural correlate for the limited processing capacity of the visual system.”4 In layperson’s terms, what this means is that physical clutter in your surroundings competes for your attention, which results in decreased performance and increased anxiety and stress levels.

So, if you want to become a master at concentration, divest yourself of the potential for distraction whenever concentration is critical. If you’re working on your computer, shut down every application and every open tab other than the ones you absolutely need to perform the task at hand. Limit the number of items in your physical workspace as well. While I think many of us consider a desk piled with books, magazines, papers, pictures of our kids, and souvenirs from our vacations to be cozy or even the sign of an active mind, every single one of those items creates a pull away from your concentration. Family heirlooms are wonderful, and you already know how I feel about books. Just limit the number of these things that share residence with the place where you need to be most productive.

CALMING YOUR BUSY MIND

Unlimiting your focus requires more than just getting to the tasks at hand. As we’ve already discussed, focus requires an ability to set aside distractions and give all your attention to what you’re doing. But is that even possible anymore? Most of us are working on multiple devices at the same time, often with multiple applications running on each of those devices. We have meetings to attend, e-mails and texts to answer, social media statuses to update, and multiple projects in play. Yet, precisely because of this, it’s more important than ever to find ways to bring calm to your mind.

You might not even realize it, but all the input you’re getting on any given day is causing you a considerable amount of stress. If you’re like many people, you might even think of this as a positive thing, because it means that you’re busy, and by being busy, you’re making a meaningful contribution to the world. While this might be true, it is in spite of this anxiety rather than because of it.

“Anxious thoughts can overwhelm you, making it difficult to make decisions and take action to deal with whatever issue bothers you” writes psychologist Melanie Greenberg, Ph.D., author of The Stress-Proof Brain. “Anxiety can also lead to overthinking, which makes you more anxious, which leads to more overthinking, and so on. How can you get out of this vicious cycle? Repressing anxious thoughts won’t work; they will just pop up again, sometimes with more intensity.”5

Juliet Funt is the CEO of the consulting firm WhiteSpace at Work. She describes whitespace as “the thinking time, the strategic pause that’s in between the busyness.”6 When she was on my podcast, Juliet called whitespace “the oxygen that allows everything else to catch fire.”

What both Greenberg and Funt are identifying is the need for all of us to have more time when our minds aren’t cluttered. It’s obvious how doing this will positively affect our mental health. But what’s less obvious is how it will also dramatically improve our focus and our productivity. Some interesting studies in neuroscience underscore this, showing us how distraction is actually changing our brains. One, from University College London, compared the brains of heavy media multitaskers with those of light media multitaskers and found that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which is involved in focus, was smaller among the former group. Conversely, a study at the Max Planck Institute found that, among people going through training exercises to increase attention, their ACCs grew thicker.7

And distractions can be a serious time sink. A study from University of California, Irvine, shows how distractions can really disrupt your day. “You have to completely shift your thinking, it takes you a while to get into