‘Swing of a club’
The harder I try the worse I perform. That’s what I learned as a child, but for some reason didn’t adapt it into my ethos until very recently.
I’ve always had an overactive mind, which has it’s pros and cons. On the one hand I enjoy problem solving and challenging myself working with technology, on the other I tend to over-think or analyse things which breeds anxiety. We can’t choose our cards, so it’s best to learn how to optimally work with them.
Dad would take my brother and I out to play a round of golf as kids. Be under no illusion, I’m no golfer to any stretch of the imagination. I was provided with a few techniques; keep your head down, don’t try to over-hit it, don’t look up (I always looked up), but whilst this toolset of techniques were (and are) useful, it didn’t seem to help.
Why am I still reading about your failed childhood golfing aspirations I hear you think, well, there was something very useful to be learned; beyond the fact we’re not all destined to do be good at everything we try. The concept is simple enough, we can introduce other thoughts to avoid over-thinking when needed, yet also eliminate distracting thoughts when our full concentration is required.
Chris Bailey perfectly conceptualised our ‘attentional space’ in his book ‘Hyperfocus’ which I love and largely influences my application of not trying too hard at a task to achieve it. To crudely summarise, he described how our attentional space is like a circle, and within that any thought or task is a bubble, which we can optimally fill with one task to the maximum with no distraction to reach a ‘hyper focussed’ state, or we can balance a couple of less demanding bubbles in our space, however the more complex these are or more we try and squeeze in the less attention we can devote to any of those thoughts and less productive we’re able to be.
It’s the first tee for the round of golf to start the day. In that moment your entire attentional space is focussed on one task; to swing the club and make a good shot. Even seasoned golfers can struggle with that first shot, regardless of ability. They no longer need the toolset as they’re practised and able to make the shot, however an internally developed pressure grows resulting in the thought of wanting to make a good shot, taking over the regular notion of the swing and increasing the window for mistakes.
I was a few levels behind in ability here, but worse in my case is that this flawed mentality extended to almost every shot I made, not just the first. What I found was the harder I tried, the more I wanted to make a good shot, the deeper I tried to concentrate on the tools, it simply distorted my attentional space; over-thinking and analysing each part of the toolset outweighed my ability to carry them through.
The few good shots I would achieve were the ones I deliberately didn’t try or overthink, I just looked down, thought about the day and being there with my family, swung the club back and followed through. Somehow this relaxed approach allowed the toolset to naturally work without thinking excessively on them (of course practise improves this too). I learned looking back that there is a balance, to not try at all clearly won’t achieve good results, yet over-thinking a task means that worry can consume ability, so there’s a sweet spot between being mindful and aware of your toolset, and concentrating on a singular task but not allowing it to become distorted in your attentional space. Easier said than done, right?
Definitely. I’d get frustrated, swing harder and harder, clenching my arms, fretting and repeating “left arm straight, left arm straight, look down, look at the ball”, and that trajectory was perfectly flawed; the more I tried the worse the results, and more annoyed I became. If I tried to tell myself to stop overthinking it also fuelled the fire. Looking back, making a good shot was a result of subconsciously allowing what I call ‘white noise’ thoughts into my attentional space; neutrally deferring my full focus on the golf swing and preventing that thought from distorting.
A golf swing is one of many examples. Another task I particularly struggle with is recording music; red light syndrome as it’s referred to. You can play perfectly fine; the issue isn’t ability (for the sakes of argument anyway), however as soon as you record the ability falls apart. I’ve not suddenly forgotten how to play, I still have the embedded toolset, but for some reason my attentional space has been overly focused on one task and allowed itself to distort. This can snowball into hundreds of takes of a simple guitar part, which is time consuming and frustrating to say the least.
Allowing some neutral ‘white noise’ bubbles into your attentional space is all that’s needed to combat this. I developed a simple trick in this example; to record a random guitar part over the main part I was trying to record; messy, tapping my foot or humming along as I go (which works in order to not distort the task at hand, but those useful noises would unfortunately bleed through to the recording if it were the part I was trying to record). Now equipped with this backup part through my headphones means that I’ve introduced a white noise attentional bubble whilst recording my main part, listening to the other parts as I play. Cognitively listening along I play absolutely fine, the neutral ‘white noise’ bubble of thought is a positive one, just enough to save the main task from distorting.
When concentrating on work I find that adding ambient music helps; in essence adding a small ‘white noise’ bubble to my attentional space which is enough to prevent my main task at hand from distorting. In my case, this music has to specifically be instrumental (non-lyrical), slow tempo, often classical/piano music. Music with lyrics for example, will inject more attentional focus to the music, bloating that bubble too large to balance alongside the task at hand. Friends of mine tend to prefer noise cancelling headphones with no sound, others can listen to lyrical music, everyone has their own balance to optimal productivity.
Similarly, often in a work environment, you may need to fully focus on a task at hand where no distraction can be permitted, allowing it to totally fill your entire attentional space. The aforementioned ‘Hyperfocus’, and ‘Making Time’ by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky are full of tools to optimise your attentional space and time, with techniques and an emphasis on the importance of a distraction-free environment to do your most effective and productive work. My takeout has been that there are two ends of the scale; tasks that require all of your attentional space and benefit from it, and for which you need to reduce any distractions, or negative bubbles entering your attentional space, and (often less intensive) tasks that actually suffer from overly heavily directed focus, which benefit from the introduction of ‘white noise’ thoughts to allow them to perform at their best without distorting.
Everyone’s different, and the sweet spot of productivity is almost definitely going to be in different areas of your own attention spaces, but I’ve found it incredibly useful to be mindful of my attentional space and be intentional with the thoughts I allow in there during any given task. Hopefully this can benefit you too and help you do (more) amazing things.
A few techniques to accelerate productivity:
We need a toolset or understanding for guidance of whatever task we’re undertaking in order to not go in un-guided or under-prepared
We must understand and be mindful of our attentional space, mapping out and learning our thoughts, which can co-exist, and appropriately fill our space to optimally perform the task at hand; introducing white noise to avoid overthinking a single task, or to prevent distractions entering our space when our full attention is needed
We have to appreciate that practise will always improve consistency and ability
We can label the thought bubbles entering our attentional space; worry and over-analysis as negative bubbles we want to defer, and if we find ourselves distorting on a task, ambient music or ‘white noise’ bubbles can be a positive catalyst to our productivity