CHAPTER

8

CONNECTING DOTS

It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.

—Albert Einstein

BECOMING MORE CREATIVE

As well as enabling you to plan for the future and replenish your supply of mental energy, scatterfocus allows you to become more creative. You can use scatterfocus mode to become more creative in two ways: first, by connecting more dots; and second, by collecting more valuable dots—a topic that will be covered in the next chapter.

Hyperfocus is about focusing on a single thing. This lets your brain become productive, encode information and experiences so that you remember them later, and engage with the world around you. In scatterfocus mode you do the opposite: you zoom out and connect the constellations of “dots” in your head (a “dot” being any piece of information you hold in your mind).

On a neurological level, our brain is a constellation of dot-filled networks—and we’re constantly adding more with every new experience. We gather dots when we’re creating memories with loved ones, studying history, or reading the biographies of people who lived through it—which helps us understand the sequences of ideas that created the world we live in today. We accumulate dots with each mistake we make (and learn from) and each time we’re open enough to admit that we’re wrong—which replaces the obsolete dots in our mind with new ones. We harvest dots with each enlightening conversation, which permits us to gaze at the constellations of dots that live in the minds of knowledgeable people or ones who see the world differently. Each dot is encoded into our memory and available for later use.

The word that best describes how your brain looks when you enter scatterfocus mode is “random.” Scatterfocus lights up your brain’s default network—the network it returns to when you’re not focused on something.* This network is widely distributed across the brain, as is the information we’ve encoded into memory. One of the many reasons scatterfocus leads to so many creative insights is that while in it, we naturally begin to connect the scattered dots we’ve collected. As we cast a metaphorical net across our minds, fishing for novel connections, we connect ideas while we rest and plan for the future.

We’re not always aware of the ideas our attentional space pans over as we move among our thoughts—like an iceberg that resides mostly underwater, much of this process takes place in the depths of our consciousness. Since we can focus on just a small amount of information at one time, only a few of the active connections in our minds can break into our attentional space. However, these random connections do get our attention when they become sufficiently activated. It’s at this moment that we realize we should hire Cheryl instead of Jim, map the intentions we should set for later, or arrive at a sudden eureka insight.

INSIGHT TRIGGERS

Uncompleted tasks and projects weigh more heavily on our minds than ones we’ve finished—focus comes when we close these distracting open loops. We’re wired to remember what we’re in the middle of more than what we’ve completed. In psychology circles this phenomenon is called the Zeigarnik effect, after Bluma Zeigarnik, the first person to study this concept. The Zeigarnik effect can be annoying when we’re trying to focus, but the opposite is true when we scatter our attention. In fact, it leads to amazing insights into the problems we’re incubating.

Chances are you’ve experienced a few eureka moments yourself. Maybe they struck while you were making breakfast, getting the mail, or walking through an art gallery. Your brain suddenly and unexpectedly found the solution to a problem you hadn’t thought about for a few hours. In an instant, the puzzle pieces satisfyingly slid together and locked into place.

Two things were likely true at that moment: first, at that moment your insight was a response to a problem you were stuck on. Second, your mind was likely wandering while you were doing something that didn’t require your full attention.

Thanks to the Zeigarnik effect, we store any and all problems currently stumping us at the front of our minds. Any open problem—an unfinished report, a decision we’re in the middle of, or an important email we’re responding to—is an open loop that our brain is desperate to close. As a consequence, we connect each new experience to these unresolved problems in order to unearth novel solutions. Habitual scatterfocus brings these connections into our attentional space.

When we’re in habitual scatterfocus mode, potential insight triggers come from two places: our wandering minds themselves and the external environment. It’s best to illustrate this with an example.

Let’s say I invite you to my secret productivity-experiment lair. I offer you a seat, set a timer for thirty minutes, and ask you to solve this seemingly simple problem: The number 8,549,176,320 is probably the single most unique ten-digit number in the world. What makes it unlike any other number? Let’s imagine you can’t solve the problem in the allotted time—not unreasonable, given that this is a particularly tricky one. You leave frustrated, and the question continues to weigh on your mind: What is so unusual about 8,549,176,320?

By now you’ve reached an impasse and have encoded the problem into memory. You’ve started to see those digits whenever you close your eyes. (Naturally, the better you remember a complex problem, the greater your odds of coming up with a creative solution.) This particular brain teaser would probably never actually cause a high level of torment. But for the sake of this example, let’s say it does.

Thanks to the Zeigarnik effect, your mind will automatically connect your new experiences to this problem, whether you realize it or not. You return to work, still frustrated, with the number imprinted on your brain. You find your mind returning to it periodically, sometimes even against your will. In fact, odds are that your mind will wander more often than usual—our thoughts drift more often when we’re in the middle of solving a complex problem—which will cause you to make a higher-than-normal number of mistakes in your work.

Later in the day, you work on an activity that takes you into habitual scatterfocus mode: organizing your bookshelf in alphabetical order. You’re putting away the book The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch. As you do so, your mind processes where the book will be shelved.

Okay, ignore the word “the.”

First value is 8, so I’ll put it with the other books that start with a number.

Huh, the number in Chris’s experiment was also an 8.

Like a lightning bolt, the solution hits you. You feel dozens of puzzle pieces sliding and locking into place in your mind.

8,549,176,320.

Eight, five, four, nine . . .

A, B, C, D, Eight, FIve, FOur, G, H . . .

The number in the experiment has every digit, arranged in alphabetical order!

As far as insight triggers go, this is a fairly straightforward one—usually they are more subtle, nudging your mind to think in a different direction and restructuring the mental dots that represent a problem. I designed this example to illustrate a simple concept: habitual scatterfocus lets our minds connect the problems we’re tackling with what we experience, as well as where our minds happen to wander.

Insight is a notoriously difficult subject to study. To do so, you have to lead people to an impasse on a problem and maintain sufficient interest in it to make them want to solve it later. Luckily, you don’t need the results of research to support these findings—you probably have enough data at your disposal in the form of your own past experiences.

I can’t stress enough how remarkable insight triggers are. You may see a bird picking at a chip packet, which leads you to realize you should clear the chips you’ve been snacking on out of the kitchen so you can lose those final ten pounds. Intentionally daydreaming during your morning shower, you recall how you resolved a past work dispute and realize you can use the same technique today. Walking through a bookstore, you notice a cookbook, which reminds you that you were planning on replacing your kitchenware set—and that there’s a store around the corner that sells them. The richer our environment, and the richer our experiences, the more insights we’re able to unearth.

Look back at some of the greatest eureka moments in history. In addition to reaching an impasse with their problems, the famous thinkers arrived at solutions to them after being spurred by an external cue. Archimedes figured out how to calculate the volume of an irregular object when he noticed his bathwater overflowing. Newton came up with his theory of gravity when he saw an apple fall from a tree—probably the best-known insight trigger in history. For his habitual scatterfocus routine, renowned physicist and Nobel laureate Richard Feynman would sip 7UP at a topless bar, where he could “‘watch the entertainment,’ and, if inspiration struck, scribble equations on cocktail napkins.”

CONNECTING EVEN MORE DOTS

Simply entering habitual scatterfocus mode will enable you to experience the remarkable benefits I’ve covered so far. But if you want to level up even further, here are six ways to do so.

1. Scatter your attention in a richer environment.

Being mindful of and controlling your environment is one of the most productive steps you can take. In addition to creating a focus-conducive environment (using the steps discussed in the first part of this book), you can also help surface scatterfocus insights by deliberately exposing yourself to new cues.

Immersing yourself in a setting that contains potential insight triggers is a powerful practice. A rich environment is one where you’re constantly encountering new people, ideas, and sights. Break activities like walking through a bookstore or people-watching at a diner are far more valuable than those that don’t carry any new potential cues. Adopt a mix of such activities—some that give your mind the space to wander and connect dots and others that expose your mind to new ideas you can connect later.

You can also use cues to capture everything you need to get done. Walk around your house with a notepad and draw up a list of tasks that need to be completed. This list represents your external cues. You’ll be able to capture just as much—if not more—valuable information if you do the same at the office or while browsing each folder on your computer. While this might feel overwhelming at first, you’ll be able to better organize and prioritize everything on your plate. If you want to deepen your relationships with friends, scroll through the contacts app on your phone and take note of whom you haven’t connected with in a while. If you want to develop deeper professional relationships, scroll through your LinkedIn contact list. Deliberately exposing yourself to new cues can help in these ways and more.

2. Write out the problems you’re trying to crack.

I hit a major impasse when I pored through the 25,000 words of research notes I had collected for Hyperfocus: How could I reorganize these digital scribbles into something resembling a book? My outline document was essentially a 25,000-word problem statement. I printed and reviewed it regularly—noting at the top of the pages my biggest challenges, such as how I’d make the book practical, structure the manuscript, and present the research so that it was interesting.

Regularly reviewing these problems and the document itself kept the project fresh in my mind. Frequently entering habitual scatterfocus mode (including one afternoon during which I scanned the tables of contents of about a hundred books to see how they were structured) surrounded me with potential solution cues—I was scattering my attention in a richer environment. Eventually the answers came.

Writing down the detailed problems you’re tackling at work and at home helps your mind continue to process them in the background. When you capture the tasks, projects, and other commitments on your plate, you’re able to stop thinking about them and focus on your other work. The opposite is true when it comes to the problems you’re in the middle of solving: recording them on paper helps you to better clarify, process, and remember them.

This same technique works for large projects—making an outline for how you’ll write your thesis, remodel your kitchen, or staff your new team helps you process these ideas in the background so you can continue to collect and connect new dots related to the project.

Another powerful idea for the smaller nuts you’re trying to crack: in addition to setting three next-day intentions at the end of the workday, note the largest problems you’re in the middle of processing. You’ll be surprised how many you figure out by the next morning.

3. Sleep on a problem.

As I mentioned earlier, dreaming is scatterfocus on steroids: while you’re sleeping, your mind continues to connect dots.

There are countless examples of eureka insights that have struck people as they dreamed. To harness the power of sleep, Thomas Edison would go to bed holding a handful of marbles, and Salvador Dalí would doze off with a set of keys in his hand, dangling over a metal plate. Both men would continue holding the items during the lighter stages of sleep but drop them once they hit a deeper stage, which woke them up. This allowed them to capture whatever insight was on their mind in that moment. Edison put it memorably when he purportedly urged that you should “never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.”

Deep and freeform connections come especially strongly as you dream during the REM stage of sleep. One study that had participants incubate a problem found that during REM sleep, participants “showed enhanced integration of unassociated information,” which helped them find a solution.

Sleep also helps you remember more—it consolidates the dots you’ve accumulated over the course of the day into long-term memory and intentionally forgets the less important and irrelevant dots you encountered. You absorb a lot of “noise” over the course of the day, and sleep gives your brain the chance to dispose of dots that don’t have a valuable connection to the others in your mind.

To invest in a good night’s sleep and to use this tool to your advantage, review the problems you’re facing, as well as any information you’re trying to encode into memory, before you head to bed. Your mind will continue processing these things while you rest.

4. Step back.

If you followed the tactics in the first half of the book—and especially if you’ve started to meditate—chances are the size of your attentional space has expanded. As this happens, it becomes increasingly important that you enter scatterfocus mode in order to intentionally scatter your attention.

Research suggests that the larger your attentional space, the more likely you are to continue stubbornly hammering away at complex tasks on which you’re stuck. This is where scatterfocus trounces hyperfocus—scatterfocus is much better at piecing together solutions to complex, nonlinear problems. The better you’re able to focus, the less prone you are to mind wandering and the more important it is that you purposefully unfocus.

It’s also worth taking your time in solving the problems presented by creative tasks. Purposefully delaying creative decisions—as long as you don’t face an impending deadline—lets you continue to make potentially more valuable connections. For example, the longer you wait before sending an important email response, the better and more articulate your reply is likely to be. The same is true for tasks like deciding between a few potential hires, brainstorming a revamped design for your company’s logo, or outlining a course you’re teaching.

5. Intentionally leave tasks unfinished.

The more abruptly you stop working on a creative task, the more you’ll think about it when you switch to another. Leave some residue in your attentional space for your mind to continue processing the initial task. For example, try stopping work on a complicated report midway through a sentence.

Leaving tasks partly completed helps you keep them front of mind as you encounter external and internal solution cues.

6. Consume more valuable dots.

We are what we consume. You can take deeper advantage of scatterfocus mode when you become deliberate about the information you take in. Consuming new dots exposes a wealth of new information and triggers that you can use to solve complex problems.

I’ve devoted the next chapter to exploring this idea. These dots have an enormous effect on what we focus on, can make or break our creativity and productivity, and are the lens through which we view the world.