WORK SMART

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THE SCIENCE BEHIND

DAYDREAMING AND HOW
YOU CAN RETRAIN YOUR
BRAIN TO FOCUS
OUR BRAINS AREN'T DESIGNED FOR THE TYPE OF WORK WE DO,
WHICH IS WHY WE'RE ALWAYS DISTRACTED. BUT TWO RULES CAN
HELP YOU RETRAIN YOUR BRAIN.

BY STEPHANIE VOZZA
The secret to productivity isnt getting more things done; its getting
the right things done. It sounds simple, but the problem is that office
workers are interrupted, or self-interrupt, about every three minutes,
according to a study from the University of California, Irvine, as
reported in the Wall Street Journal. These distractions get in the way
and derail your intentions.
"Research has shown that our minds are wandering 46.9% of the time,"
says Rasmus Hougaard, coauthor of One Second Ahead: Enhance Your
Performance at Work With Mindfulness. "Its not hugely surprising that
the World Health Organization predicts work-related stress, burnout,
and depression to be among the worlds most prevalent diseases by
2020."

Unfortunately, part of the problem is that our brains arent built for
todays world, says Hougaard. "We still have a brain well suited for a
hunter life, where work had a singular focus," he says. "Our brain is not
designed for the kind of work we now do, especially in offices. The
default for our brain is to want to do all of it at the same time, and we
arent naturally able to cope with that. From a neurological point of
view, we need an upgrade."
THE DEFAULT FOR OUR BRAIN IS TO WANT TO DO ALL OF IT AT THE SAME TIME,
AND WE ARENT NATURALLY ABLE TO COPE WITH THAT.

Another reason our brains like to wander is that it receives a reward

each time it "accomplishes" a new task. Researchers from Harvard
University found that multitasking provides a dopamine injection to the
brain. Dopamine is a naturally produced neurotransmitter that is
directly linked to addiction, and when its released, it provides a sense
of gratification and enjoyment.
"Even small insignificant things like checking email give your brain a
dopamine release," says Hougaard. "Multitasking trains the brain to
welcome distractions and all of the inefficiencies it creates. Shifting
back and forth between tasks often feels exciting, even though its
physically draining and stressful."
Boosting productivity and focus requires working against the brains
natural tendencies. "You have to override the brain wanting to do more
at a time, especially the small, insignificant things," says Hougaard.
This is done through mindfulness training, which involves two rules.
TWO RULES OF BEING MORE MINDFUL
1. Focus on what you choose. The first rule is to recognize that the

overwhelming majority of distractions are irrelevant and can be set

aside in the moment, says Hougaard. In fact, almost all distractions

can be let go, and by consciously choosing where to focus your

attention, you avoid becoming a victim of distraction.
"Mindfulness training is the ability to notice distractions without getting
distracted by them," he says. "When a distraction arises, you see it and
can let it go."
SHIFTING BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN TASKS OFTEN FEELS EXCITING, EVEN
THOUGH ITS PHYSICALLY DRAINING AND STRESSFUL.

Mindfulness helps you focus on long-term goals versus short-term

gratification, says Hougaard. "You can mindfully discern in the moment
what is important and what is urgent," he says. "What is important is
often not urgent."
2. Choose distractions mindfully. The next rule is to be strategic about

when you will handle distractions, because at some point, youre going
to have to answer the emails or talk to the coworker who needs to ask
a question. The key is to recognize that you are in control of
distractions and not the other way around.
You have three options when it comes to a distraction, says Hougaard:
1.
2.
3.

Let it go completely
Deal with it at a specific time in the future
Fully turn your attention to it
"You do only the right things in the right moment," he says. "If
suddenly your boss comes in the door, you recognize that this
distraction is more important than what youre doing now, and you
make the conscious choice to shift your focus."
HOW IT WILL CHANGE YOUR BRAIN

By following these two rules, youll strengthen your brains prefrontal

cortex, which is the part of the brain that gives you the ability to steer

at will, focus on the tasks at hand, and gain intentional control over
"digital weapons of mass distraction," says Hougaard.
Mindfulness training helps us overcome action addiction by helping
maintain priorities. "Most of us have action addition; its that dopamine
craving," says Hougaard. "Were spinning our wheels with insignificant
things. You run fast without achieving anything. Its so widespread, and
its the main threat to mental effectiveness and productivity."
With practice, youll improve your ability to focus for longer periods of
time, and part of it is due to our brains makeup. Mindfulness training
increases the level of serotonin in our brain, a chemical that balances
out the negative effect of dopamine. "Serotonin is the antidote, and it
makes it easier for us to refrain from things we crave, and gives us
better impulse control," says Hougaard.

Madness and Genius:

Cosmologist Janna Levin on
the Vitalizing Power of
Obsessiveness, from Newton
to Einstein

Are all of natures greatest secrets encrypted in our own selves?

B Y M AR I A P O P O VA

One aphoristic definition of madness is repeating a

behavior that has previously led to disappointing results over and over again,
expecting a different outcome each time. Freud coined the concept of repetition
compulsion around this notion. But Im a post-Freudian optimist I believe
that we repeat our perilous patterns not out of blind compulsion but because this
is how we evolve. This, after all, is how evolution works in a scientific sense
repetition is its primary driving force. Organisms only ever change by countless
iterations, making subtle and imperceptible self-transformations with each turn
of the reproductive cycle adaptive changes in the service of their optimal
survival, iterative intimations of continual betterment whispered into the ear of
time until the organism emerges as an entirely new creature.
Since our biology and our psychology are so symbiotically entwined, this
too must be how our consciousness evolves and how any meaningful change
comes about. The history of innovation offers plenty of testaments most of
the people we celebrate as geniuses, whose breakthroughs forever changed our
understanding of the world and our experience of life, labored under David

Foster Wallaces definition of true heroism minutes, hours, weeks,

year upon year of the quiet, precise, judicious exercise of probity and care
with no one there to see or cheer. Marie Curie toiled in her lab until excessive
exposure to radiation begot the finitude of her flesh, wholly unprotected by her
two Nobel Prizes. Trailblazing astronomer Maria Mitchell made herself ill
with fatigue as she peered into the cosmos with her two-inch telescope well
into the night, night after night. Thomas Edison tried material after material
while looking for a stable filament for the first incandescent bulb,
proclaiming: I have not failed. Ive just found ten thousand ways
that wont work. And then there was light.

Art by Lauren Redniss from Radioactive, an illustrated celebration of

Marie Curies life and legacy

An artist needs a certain amount of turmoil and

confusion, Joni Mitchell observed incontemplating madness and
the creative mind. But perhaps the singular turmoil of creative geniuses is
precisely this compulsion for iterative betterment, which may give the illusion
of madness to the outside world but which remains a central vitalizing force in
the interior life of genius.
This relationship between genius and madness is what theoretical cosmologist
and astrophysicist Janna Levin examines in a portion of How the

Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite

Space (public library) an infinitely rewarding and unusual book, both
rigorous and lyrical, aglow with the trifecta of what makes great
science writing.
Levin, who characterizes her fascination with the madness of mathematicians as
morbid but harmless and wonders whether brushes with insanity are
occupational hazards, writes:

Insanity, madness, obsession, math, objectivity, truth,

science and art. These friends always impress me. Theyre
sculptors and tailors, not scientists or spies. Ive chosen
them with the peculiar attentiveness of a shell collector
stupidly combining the overwhelming multitude of broken
detritus to hold up one shell so beautiful that it finds its
way into my pocket, lining my clothes with sand. And then
another. Not too many, so that the sheer number could
never diminish the value of one.
With an eye to her historical compatriots in this kingdom of scientific obsession,
she reflects:

Some very clever people were obsessive-compulsive. I

dont believe insanity is either a requirement or a
guarantee for brilliance. But I find the anecdotes so
interesting, so much more interesting than the usual hero
worship. Im subjected to my brothers in science I find
their weaknesses so much more touching.
Newton wasnt obsessive-compulsive to my knowledge, but
the tenacity of his mental health has certainly been called
into question, particularly in his later years. Newton was a
secret alchemist, conducting covert experiments in his
college rooms in Cambridge, including very peculiar ones

that involved staring at the sun and stabbing himself in the

eye with a small dagger. His mental ailments are usually
described as paranoia and depression. Some have even
suggested that he was as mad as a hatter, meaning his
insanity was induced by mercury and other chemicals he
ingested in the course of his alchemy chemicals that led
to the mental disintegration of traditional hatmakers.
Others suggest his emotional breakdowns were incited by
the trials of his covert homosexuality. A broken heart, that
sounds more likely.
Any mental lapses seem to have had little impact on his
intense scientific clarity, art least for most of his
production. Newton was so right about so many things that
it seems ungenerous to dwell on where he was wrong.
Among the things about which Newton was trailblazingly right was the intuition
that the laws of physics should hold equally true for all observers moving
uniformly without any forces acting upon them. This, of course, was the seed of
relativity theory, which Einstein developed into his landmark contribution.

Illustration by
Vladimir Radunsky for On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein by
Jennifer Berne

It is Levins account of Einstein, in fact, that best captures this wonderfully

optimistic view of the relationship between maddening compulsiveness and
genius. She writes of his struggle to find an equation for general relativity, one
that would describe his pioneering model of curved space:

Armed with the crudest mathematical instruments, he

pierced the surface and saw through to the core. First he
identified the object of pursuit, geometry. Then he realized
he was completely unequipped to handle a battle with such
complex geometry.
[]

Einstein had created an unwieldy monster that in a way he

couldnt tame. He conjured up a theory reliant on
mathematics in a curved space-time that still demands
years of its students attention. Though he managed to use
those tools, compared to his mathematician friends he used
them clumsily. Isnt that great? I love that. His fragility, his
defiant brilliance in the face of his own limitations He
ploughed right past his inadequacy. Maybe this is what he
meant when he said Imagination is more important than
knowledge. Like a bad plumber he hacked and hammered
and slapped together a mathematical model of curved
space, correcting error after error in his own formulation.
Sloshing between despair, doubt and conviction. When he
finally pulled something together, something that worked,
he was overcome with elation for days. He had trudged
through the darkness of his own confusion and found what
he set out to discover; a theory of gravity based on curved
spacetime and faithful to his principle of relativity. Its like
Michelangelo revealing the sculpture he believed hidden
within each stone.
Out of this iterative obsessiveness verging on insanity spring the advancements
we experience as groundbreaking repetition becomes the wellspring of
revelation. Somehow, though they may appear blinded by their compulsions,
minds of genius see more clearly into the nature of things, into some
microscopic or monumental aspect of the world that evades the rest of us.
Levin considers the root of Einsteins visionary powers of perception:

The rest of us live in this fog that he could just see through.
He followed his intuition like a beacon, distrusting his
calculations but not faltering his faith. Where does this kind
of knowledge come from? Is it there in his mind? In my

mind? Yours? Waiting to be mined? Are all of natures

greatest secrets encrypted in our own selves? I hope so. I
think so.
How the Universe Got Its Spots is a thoroughly wonderful read in
its totality, using the perennial puzzlement of whether the universe is
infinite or finite to tell the larger story of how we came to know what we
know about space, time, and what we call reality. Complement this particular
portion with a look at the relationship between creativity and
mental illness, then revisit Einstein on the nature of the human
mindand the true rewards of work.