The past year or so, I’ve noticed a habit of mine that helps me out a lot. I “accidentally” created this habit, probably by intuition or experience, then discovered it’s actually the recommended thing to do by science.
I don’t know if this is the best term for it, but I call it “finding a balance between diffuse thinking and focused thinking”.
What does it mean?
I’m sure you have had days or moments when you just couldn’t concentrate. You had to finish something before a deadline, or you had to do a task, but you just could not focus and do the thing. You know you should study, but even that tree outside your window can hold your focus better than a paragraph of text.
Usually, this happens after you’ve worked too hard. You already did a lot of things that day, you already had to concentrate on other tasks the entire week, so that part of your brain is simply … depleted. And as it happens with systems, if one thing is depleted or out of whack, you automatically start to do the opposite thing to balance it again.
What’s the opposite of focused or concentrated thinking? Diffuse thinking. Letting your mind wander wherever it wants to go. You pursue whatever interests you then—or not, you can just let thoughts come and go. You don’t have to focus on something specific. You don’t have to finish some task. Your mind is still very active, you can still be doing something, but it actually feels like resting and taking a much-needed break.
Yes, this is very similar to meditation! It’s been proven time and time again just how beneficial any sort of meditation is (for your brain and body), and this is just a variant of it.
I guess that’s why I naturally gravitated towards doing this. For hyperactive people like me, meditation is one of those things that just never became any sort of habit to me. I can’t sit still. I’m too busy, I want to move and run and jump all day. No matter how hard I try, actual meditation never worked for me.
But diffuse thinking? That I can do. That helps me out a lot.
In practice, it usually looks like this.
- I wake up and start my day with focused thinking. There is always one task that just needs to be done. If I don’t do it, none of my projects would ever be finished.
- But then, by afternoon, I feel drained by that. Or, well, it just feels like “focused thinking is done”. I naturally switch to diffuse thinking. I let myself wander, let myself research tangents, suddenly find myself doing a completely unrelated and non-urgent task, it doesn’t matter! Thoughts come and go, interests come and go, and I just follow where my brain leads.
- By evening, I go back to focused thinking. I can usually finish one or more focused tasks that day. Those are my hardest problems, my deadlines, or simply the most boring parts of projects that still need to be done.
- And then, for the final hours of my day, I go to diffuse thinking again. Wind down. Don’t overwork my brain or body, or I won’t sleep. Let myself chase some random interests again … or not.
This, at least for me, works great. I get my “crucial work” done and I get enough rest. I plow through some tasks I just can’t delay and I am able to be inspired and get new ideas.
There have been countless times where this “diffuse mode” led to reading random Wikipedia pages, or suddenly watching videos of some sport I never knew existed. And that gave me by far the best ideas for my current project!
Some time ago I also stopped eating behind my desk (while continuing to work). Instead, I now read a newspaper downstairs while I eat. At first I was afraid this would ruin my productivity. I would lose all that precious time because I had to stop working and sit at a table! As you can guess, however, the opposite was true. Stopping my work to read a newspaper for an hour has been the source of piles and piles of new ideas and inspiration. When I get back to my desk, after this extended break, I achieve far more than if I’d stayed there and tried to “stay focused”.
To an outsider, it might look like procrastination, or some useless scrolling, or some elaborate lunch break. But I believe it’s very beneficial to do this as long as you balance it with focused thinking.
Focused thinking is for turning ideas into a final product, but it’s horrible for actually getting ideas or solving problems. Diffuse thinking is great for that, but obviously won’t help you if you need to finish something before a deadline.
That’s my lesson for this article—and the warning that comes with it. If these two are out of balance, you’re shooting yourself in the foot, and you’ll always feel tired and unproductive whatever you do.
There have been so many days when I tried to force myself to stay in focused thinking all day. Maybe I was just restless and wanted a project done so I could move on. Or maybe there were actual urgent matters, pressing deadlines, or the knowledge that I couldn’t work the rest of the week (because of visiting family for Christmas, for example).
And it just never worked! After a few hours of focused thinking, that part of your brain is just exhausted. You can try to work through it, but you’ll be slower … and slower … and slower, while you make more mistakes and ruin your health. Taking a step back, letting your mind wander for a few hours, usually means you instantly have your solutions and renewed energy when you get back to focused thinking.
Since I know this, I feel like my mental health has improved again. I’ve stopped feeling bad at the end of the day for going on random tangents and not being able to focus. I’ve stopped trying to force myself to finish that project today instead of letting it linger into tomorrow or even longer.
Now I know that an actual healthy, productive, sustainable day has a balance between those two modes of thinking.
In fact, it has flipped on its head. If I have only done focused thinking the entire day, that is when I’m disappointed now. Even though I was incredibly productive, got shit done, had a clear focus all the way through … I know it will come to bite me in the behind later. I will feel drained the next day, unable to do anything then. Or I will look back at that work later and realize I made tons of mistakes or simply uncreative decisions.
You might read this and think: “But Tiamo, are you not just describing taking breaks? Why are you presenting relax once in a while as a new invention?”
Well, no, this is different.
As mentioned at the start, I am still doing stuff when I’m diffuse thinking. Sometimes I do a tiny bit of work on 6 different projects. It’s still part of “work time”. I simply allow my mind to go wherever it goes, to do whatever task jumps to me now.
In fact, I had planned to write this article in the weekend, but now it’s Tuesday and my diffuse thinking led me here! I wrote over 2,000 words before noon, even though I feel relaxed and didn’t actually force myself to focus on anything the past few hours. Similarly, in this short “diffuse period”, I reorganized my Wildebyte Arcades project (a major book series I write) to be far better and wrote down a few great ideas for educational board games. None of that was planned, none of it is urgent, but now all those tasks are also done and I feel good about that.
Additionally, when people take a break, they can still use focused thinking. In fact, we do it all the time. For example, you might play a video/mobile game to take a break. Unless it’s an exceptionally freeform and relaxing game, playing it requires focus. In that sense, many people who take breaks don’t actually take breaks. They’ll just keep focusing on work but in a different environment. They’ll just focus on a screen showing a Netflix show instead of a screen that shows an Excel spreadsheet. That’s really not “taking a break”.
I feel that diffuse thinking rests your brain (and body, to a lesser extent) better than switching to a completely different task.
Unless that task is something that allows your mind to wander. That’s why many creatives like to switch “work” with “household chores”, because folding the laundry for the 1000th time in your life does not require your focus.
You can force yourself to sit behind a desk from 9 to 5—and really only work from 9 to 10. You can force yourself to follow one of the many “productivity techniques” (such as Pomodoro) that make you work and take breaks with specific intervals and rules—and find yourself even more tired and distracted than before.
Or you can just accept that every day needs a balance of focused thinking and diffuse thinking. A few hours where you focus on getting something done, not letting yourself get distracted or jump between tasks. And a few hours where you let your mind wander, do whatever, and it’s all good.
In a sense, this is just an extension of my “do anything!” mantra. It’s better to do useless or largely irrelevant stuff, than sit still and do nothing at all. You’ll feel more fulfilled if you did all sorts of things during the day, even if those things were not planned, urgent or even sensible. And you have to trust the process to also realize this makes you far more productive than the most common ways in which people, unfortunately, are forced to work nowadays. The proof of that is in my massive portfolio, I think. I just “do anything!” every day, and get 20+ books out of it per year, so I guess it’s not bad for getting things done, is it?
Those were my thoughts for today. Now I’m going downstairs to eat and read a newspaper, and when I get back I will do the thing I actually planned—with focus!
Tiamo