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A few years ago,

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I began to observe
something in my own behavior

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that made me a bit uncomfortable.

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And that was that from the moment
that I woke up to the end of the day,

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my life was a series of screens.

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I started the day

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with the thing that woke me up
first thing in the morning, my phone,

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and so I sat there in bed watching
various cooking videos on Instagram

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and bouncing around between a bunch
of different applications.

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But then it was time
to get out of bed and cook breakfast,

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and so the thing that I focused then on,

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in addition to the omelette in the pan,

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was the iPad that was
right next to the oven.

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And then it was time to do some work,

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and so I went to a different screen

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which was attached
to another screen itself.

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All the while,

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this little devil on my wrist

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was tapping and beeping
and blooping and distracting me

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as I was trying
to get important stuff done.

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But there was one particular offender
out of all of these different devices

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that I wasted more time on
than anything else.

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That was this dastardly thing: my phone.

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I could spend hours
on this thing every single day.

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And so I decided to essentially,
for all intents and purposes,

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get rid of the thing for a month.

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As an experiment, I thought,

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"I'm going to live on this thing
for just 30 minutes every single day

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at a maximum."

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And so this is the amount
of time I have for maps,

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this is the amount of time
to call my mother,

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this is the amount of time I have

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for everything that I could
possibly want to do,

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to listen to music, to listen to podcasts,

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and I observed what happened
during this time.

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It took about a week

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to adjust downward into a new,
lower level of stimulation,

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but once I did,

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I noticed that three
curious things began to happen.

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First, my attention span grew.

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It was like I could focus on things,

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not effortlessly,

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but with much more ease than I could
before this experiment started.

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In addition to this, though,
as I was going about the world

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and especially when my mind
wandered a bit,

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I had more ideas that my mind arrived at,

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and on top of this,

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I had more plans and thoughts
about the future.

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Getting rid of one simple device
led to these three effects.

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Why?

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Noticing this a few years back
led me on this long journey

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to get to the bottom of what it takes
to focus in a world of distraction.

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I pored over hundreds of research papers
from front to back at my office.

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I don't know if you've ever watched
one of those crime shows

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where somebody's solving a murder.

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And so they have this big Bristol board,

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and there's string attached to papers

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attached to memos
attached to newspaper clippings -

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this is like what the state
of my office was.

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I flew out to meet experts
around the world who study focus;

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I conducted more experiments on myself

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until the point I had
25,000 words of research notes

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about why this is the case.

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How does technology influence
our attention and our ability to focus?

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I want to start

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with the attention spans that we have.

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This is how we pay attention
to the world around us

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and how much control
we have over our focus.

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The research around
this particular area is fascinating.

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It turns out that when we do work
in front of a computer,

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especially when our phone is nearby,

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we focus on one thing for just 40 seconds

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before we switch to doing something else,

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and when we have things like Slack open
as we're doing some work,

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this lowers to 35 seconds.

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But the reason that this is the case
is not what we might think,

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after looking at the research.

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We think the problem
is that our brains are distracted.

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But after looking at the research,

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this is what I've come to know
as a symptom for the deeper problem,

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which runs much more deeply -
it's the root cause of this distraction.

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It's not that we're distracted;
it's that our brains are overstimulated.

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It's that we crave distraction
in the first place.

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Our brains love these tiny little nuggets

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of information and social media and email

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and these things that we do
over the course of the day.

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There's even a mechanism in our mind
called the "novelty bias,"

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by which our mind rewards us
with a hit of dopamine,

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one of those wonderful pleasure chemicals,

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the same one we get when we eat and order
a whole medium pizza from Domino's,

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you know, the same one
that we get when we make love.

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We get that same stimulation
when we check Facebook.

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We get this dopamine
coursing through our mind.

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And so we not only crave distraction,

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but our mind rewards us

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for seeking out and finding
distraction in the first place.

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So, this is the state of our minds today.

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We're at this hyperstimulated state

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where we bounce around

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between these bunch
of different objects of attention

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that are very, very
stimulating for our mind.

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And so I thought, "Okay, if the phone
had this impact on my attention span,

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what if I lowered how stimulated
I was even more, still?"

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And so, you know,
this feeling that we experience

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when we go from being
in a state of high stimulation

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into a state of low stimulation,

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it has a name.

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That name is called "boredom,"

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(Laughs)

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you know, this restlessness that we feel
when we have this super busy week

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and then we're lying on the couch
on a Sunday afternoon, thinking,

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"Alright, well, what am I doing now?"

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So, I put out a call to the readers
of my website and I asked them,

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"What is the most boring thing
that you can think of doing?

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I'm going to make myself bored
for an hour a day, for a month."

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And so I did some stuff that I still am
upset about from my readers, to this day.

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Day one, I read the iTunes
terms and conditions for one hour.

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(Laughter)

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It's actually shorter and more readable
than you might think.

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Day four, I waited on hold with
Air Canada's baggage claims department.

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It's very easy -

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This is the trick:

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if you want to make yourself bored,

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don't call the reservations department,
call the baggage claim people

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because you're going to wait hours,
if you ever get through at all.

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Day 19, I counted
all the zeroes that I could

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in the first 10,000 digits of pi.

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Ugh.

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Day 24, I watched a clock

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tick, tick

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for one hour.

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And 27 other activities this month.

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Jeez.

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I still think back.

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But curiously,

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I noticed the exact same effects
as I did during the smartphone experiment.

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It took about a week
for my mind to adjust downward

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into a newer, lower level of stimulation,

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and this maps, curiously,
on top of research

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that shows that it takes
our mind about eight days

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to fully calm down and rest,

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like when we're on vacation,
as an example.

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Our vacations need to be longer
than they are today.

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But I also noticed
that my attention span expanded.

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I was able to focus
even more effortlessly

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because I wasn't surrounded
by fewer distractions,

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but my mind was so much less stimulated

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that it did not seek the distraction
in the first place.

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But the fun part were these ideas
and plans that struck me

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that didn't before,

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and the reason that this is the case

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is because my mind had a chance
to wander more often.

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There's a great quote that I love
that you might be familiar with

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from J. R. R. Tolkien,

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where he says that
"not all those who wander are lost,"

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and the exact same thing is true,
it turns out, with regard to our focus,

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with regard to our attention.

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If you think back to when your best,
most brilliant ideas strike you,

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you're rarely focused on something.

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Maybe this morning
you were taking a shower,

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or maybe some morning in the past,

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and then your mind had a chance to connect
several of the constellations of ideas

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that were swirling around in your mind

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to create an idea that would
never have materialized otherwise

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if you were focused on something else,

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on your phone, for example.

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This is a mode,

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especially when we do this deliberately,
when we deliberately let our mind wander;

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I call this mode "scatter focus."

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And the research shows

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that it lets our mind come up with ideas,
it lets our mind plan

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because of where our mind wanders to.

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This is fascinating.

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It turns out that when we just
let our attention rest,

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it goes to three main places:

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We think about the past,
we think about the present,

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and we think about the future.

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But we think about the past
less than we might think,

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only about 12% of the time,

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and often we're recalling ideas
in these thought-wandering episodes.

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But the present, which is a much more
productive place to wander -

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we wander to think
about the present 28% of the time.

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And this is, you know, something
as simple as you're typing up an email

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and you can't find a way
to phrase something

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because it's very delicate,
maybe it's political,

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you go and walk to another room,
to another room of the house, the office,

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and the solution hits you

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because your mind
had a chance to approach it

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and prod at that problem
from different directions.

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But here's the thing:

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our minds wander
to think about the future

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more than the past
and the present combined.

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Whenever our mind is wandering,
we think about the future 48% of the time.

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This is why when we're taking a shower,
we plan out our entire day,

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even though it hasn't started yet.

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This is called
our mind's prospective bias,

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and it occurs when our mind wanders.

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If you're good with math,

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or maths, I should say -

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not in Canada anymore -

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these numbers don't add up to 100.

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It's because the rest of the time,
our mind is dull, it's blank,

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or it doesn't have an idea inside of it
that is rooted in time.

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But whatever it is for you
that lets your mind wander,

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something that's simple,

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something that doesn't
consume your full attention.

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Mine happens to be something

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that is not necessarily stereotypic
of my age and gender demographic,

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but I love to knit.

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Knitting is one of my favorite hobbies;

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I knit in planes, I knit on trains,
I knit in hotel rooms.

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I was knitting in the hotel room
before this event today

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because it helps calm you down,
it helps settle your nerves.

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And I come up with so many ideas
when I knit, I have a notepad next to me.

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But whatever it is for you -

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it might be taking that extra long shower,
it might be taking a bath,

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upgrading your shower to a bath

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so you can soak not just with your body
but with your ideas as well.

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It could be simple;

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if you're at work walking
from one room to another in the office -

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very simple change -

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but if you don't use your phone
during that walk,

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your mind will go to the meeting
that you're about to attend,

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it'll go to the call
that you were just on,

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it'll wander to the ideas
that are circulating,

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and it'll make you
more creative in this way.

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It could be something
as simple as waiting in line

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and just, I don't know, waiting in line.

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It could be getting a massage.

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You know, whatever it is
that lets your mind -

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I love this picture so much -

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(Laughter)

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whatever you love doing.

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Here's a pro tip:

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Ask your masseuse to let you
have a notepad in the session

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because ideas always come to you
and you're always incubating things,

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so capture them

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so you can act upon them later.

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But I think, after doing
this deep dive into the research,

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we need to make two fundamental shifts

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with regard to how we think
about our attention.

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We think that we need to fit more in -

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you know, there's all this talk
about "hustling."

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I'm an anti-hustler.

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I'm one of the laziest people
you'll ever meet,

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and I think that's what gives me
so many ideas to talk and write about.

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We don't need to fit more in.

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We're doing enough; we're doing too much.

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We're doing so much
that our mind never wanders anymore.

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It's sad.

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This is when our best ideas
and plans come to us.

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We need more space.

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If you look at what allows traffic
to move down a highway,

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what allows it to move forward
isn't how fast cars are moving,

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as you might expect,

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it's how much space
exists between the cars

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that allows traffic to move forward.

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Our work and our life are the same way.

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The second shift:

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we like to think of distraction
as the enemy of focus.

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It is not.

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It is a symptom of why
we find it difficult to focus,

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which is the fact
that our mind is overstimulated.

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I have a challenge for you.

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It's a two-week challenge,

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but it's a challenge to make your mind
a bit less stimulated

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and simply notice:

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what happens to your attention?

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How many ideas do you get?

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How does your focus change?

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How many plans do you make?

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So, for two weeks,
make your mind less stimulated.

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There are so many great features
on phones, on devices

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that'll let us eliminate a lot of the time
we waste on our devices.

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Use those features,

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not only to become aware
of how you spend your time

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but how you can spend less
so you have more ideas.

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Have a disconnection ritual every evening.

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One of my favorite daily rituals:

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I disconnect from the Internet completely

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from 8pm to 8am.

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My fiancée and I, we have
a weekly disconnection ritual,

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a technology Sabbath every Sunday,

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so we can disconnect
from the digital world

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and reconnect with the physical world,
the real, actual world.

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Rediscover boredom -
you don't have to do it for an hour.

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Please don't call Air Canada.
It's just a world of hell.

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But rediscover boredom,
just for a few minutes.

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Lay on the couch,
and where does your mind go?

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And scatter your attention.

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You'll find some
remarkably fruitful things

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in that attentional zone.

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If there's one thing
that I have found to be true

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after doing this deep dive
into this world on how we focus,

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it's that the state of our attention
is what determines the state of our lives.

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If we're distracted in each moment,

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those moments of distraction
and overstimulation

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build up and accumulate

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to create a life that feels
more distracted and overwhelming,

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like we don't have a clear direction.

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But when we become less stimulated,
when we make our mind more calm,

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we get the benefits of added productivity
and focus and ideas and creativity,

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but we also live
a better life because of it.

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Thank you so much.

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(Applause)