Mind Performance Hacks

Hack #65. Employ Mental Momentum

Recognize your mind's tendency to keep doing what it's doing, and you might learn to see the forest as well as the trees, for your own benefit.

Your mind is like your car: it has its own direction and momentum. The momentum is important: once your mind is moving in a certain direction (that is, focused on a certain subject), it will continue moving in that direction until something—either the driver (you) or a concrete embankment (life)—alters its course.

For our purposes, mental momentum comes in two varieties: positive and negative. Positive mental momentum happens when you are caught up in something you ought to be doing; negative mental momentum happens when you are caught up in something you ought not to be doing.

Productivity consultant Alan Lakein developed something he called the Swiss cheese method: breaking up a large project into many small tasks of five minutes or less¹ (this is analogous to the next task concept in the Getting Things Done system²). If you start these tasks with the intention of working on them for only five minutes, not only will you drill a lot of five-minute holes in the cheese of your project, but also—and this is important—you might find that you don't want to stop when the five minutes are up. This is positive mental momentum.

Unfortunately, mental momentum also comes in the negative variety. Unless you're aware of it—and your own predilection toward it—negative mental momentum can prevent intelligent focus. Negative ...