Have you ever known peak mental focus? By ‘peak’, I mean focus so good that what you have done has been stellar, highly enjoyable and refreshing? On the occasions when I have known this, there were three signals present. In this post, I explain each signal and invite you to explore how you can cultivate this more in your own life.
Just occasionally when thinking about writing a strategic document for a client, I have an incredibly productive car journey. I can’t take notes. I don’t have a secretary to dictate things to. I can’t look at a screen. But if the conditions are right, my mind goes into overdrive.
Exactly this happened to me two months ago. I had a strategic document to write for a client, and when I parked the car after one hour of driving I was able to type it up to 95% of its finished standard within 10 minutes flat. The conditions of my success on this occasion were surprising.
1. Engage your creative self
First, during the car journey from Winchester to Oxford on the A34 I had switched on some music from my iPhone (linked to the car stereo system), and found myself listening to one of the most masterful pieces of music that exists. This piece is so good that I almost lose focus on the road when I hear it. (Perhaps, then, I should remove it from my phone!) The piece is Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in G Minor (Op. 23). I have found no other piece of music like it, ranging as it does from majestically mellifluous passages to devilishly difficult passages. No other piece of music draws out such a range of emotions in me. Driving fast, I felt as if I could taste the music — I felt full of life, connected. This is the first signal that you are in mental flow: you have engaged your creative self. Music engages the creative self, and encourages the kind of brain waves associated with innovative thinking.
But creativity alone is not enough.
2. Engage your mind
The second signal that you are in peak mental focus is that your mind is fully engaged. In the days before the car journey, I had been reading Play It Again, a book written by former Guardian editor and amateur pianist Alan Rusbridger. The book is about Rusbridger’s attempts to master the Ballade, so when the music came on in my car, my mind flashed back to Rusbridger’s engaging descriptions. This made me feel happy, on top of creative, in the context of my task. So the second signal is that you have engaged your mind.
3. Engage playfulness
This was when my lack of preparation got the better of me. When I had turned the music on in my car 10 minutes earlier, I had unwittingly selected the ‘Purchased Music’ playlist. It just so happened that the next track after Chopin’s Ballade was the introductory track on the album The Philadelphia Chickens — a funny, musical children’s album that is is as sidesplitting for adults as it is for kids. Imagine the contrast when, after the crashing scales and dramatic chords that mark the finale to the ballade, on came the jaunty swing of the Chickens’ instrumental reprise. I burst out laughing, only just managing to keep both hands on the steering wheel. I must have laughed for five minutes, re-energising me and, without wanting to get too psychological about it, engaging the child within me. This third signal – engaging playfulness – is critical to mental focus, not only in the longer term but also in the shorter term.
The greatest benefits for mental focus arise when combining all three signals:
- Engage your creative self
- Engage your mind
- Engage playfulness
Why does this work? A key reason is that you are operating at both ends of an important spectrum simultaneously. The spectrum is big picture and intuitive at one end, and detailed and analytical at the other end. Logic and imagination combine powerfully.The three signals above relate to an individual’s mental focus. We must next learn to combine this with what others are doing, and serve them well. Mihalyi Cszikszentmihalyi discusses the three signals, and how we can flow in relation to others, in his excellent book, Flow: The classic work on how to achieve happiness.
My experience on the A34 wasn’t at all planned – the mental focus I experienced was really the result of a mis-selected playlist. But that doesn’t mean the ability to focus comes and goes without us being able to do anything about it. By looking for opportunities to combine these three signals – engaging your creative self, your mind, and playfulness – you will find yourself more focussed and more able to achieve what you’ve set out to do.
What next?
What successes have you had with engaging your creative self, your mind or your inner child? Share your stories in the comments section below.
If you regularly find yourself distracted, and you want to start improving your mental focus, sign-up below and I will send you my FREE checklist “How to stop getting distracted and make a tangible difference” now. This template is a checklist to help you give yourself a distraction score and build a strategy to improve one thing at a time.
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