Author
Chris Bailey
The writer who spent a year experimenting on his own productivity and came back with two modes of attention.
1 book on BookYol
The story and the impact
Chris Bailey is a Canadian writer on productivity and attention. After university he turned down job offers to spend a year running experiments on himself, from weeks of near-total isolation to extreme working hours, and documented the results on a blog called A Year of Productivity. The project became his first book, The Productivity Project (2016).
Hyperfocus (2018) narrowed the subject to attention and introduced the pairing the book is known for: hyperfocus, one task filling a deliberately managed attentional space, and scatterfocus, mind-wandering used on purpose to recover and connect ideas. How to Calm Your Mind (2022) followed, written after burnout, on the relationship between calm and productive work.
He speaks widely on the subject; a TEDx talk on how to get the brain to focus is among the most watched treatments of the topic.
The signature
Bailey's signature is self-experiment reported honestly, including what failed, and a light touch with the science: he summarizes the research on working memory and attention and moves quickly to what to do with it. He is the most practical of the writers on focus, and the least interested in making the reader feel guilty.