Lifescale summary

Imagine you’re driving to a meeting when your car breaks down. Luckily, another driver stops to help. He fiddles around in the engine, and bingo – your car is running again! You’ll still need to see a mechanic eventually, but the quick fix means you’ll at least get to your meeting.

The lesson here is that you can’t always solve a problem right away, but sometimes short-term solutions will do the trick. And when the problem is a lack of focus and productivity, your short-term solutions are called attention hacks.

For many people, the word “creativity” brings to mind artistic masterpieces, great music, and inspiring designs. Works like these are all products of Creativity with a Big C – thinking that produces game-changing, innovative ideas. 

But there’s another type of creativity, one that encourages critical thinking, learning, and everyday problem-solving. This is creativity with a lowercase c, and developing it is good for more than just productivity.

Here’s a question: What is happiness? 

For many people, happiness means experiencing positive feelings such as love, joy, and pride more often than negative ones. Because of this idea, people tend to chase moments of positive emotion. But the happiness derived from such moments is usually fleeting. 

Picture this: a coworker comes up to you and excitedly shares news of her big promotion. But rather than simply being happy for her, you can’t help but think about yourself. You wonder why you haven’t been promoted – and thoughts like this keep multiplying and distracting you from your coworker’s good news. 

There’s actually a name for the stream of thoughts that constantly run through your mind: mental chatter. While some of these thoughts can be helpful, for the most part they’re unproductive and pull you away from the present. They also drain your brain’s energy, leaving you with less fuel for the tasks in front of you. As if that’s not bad enough, getting caught up in mental chatter leads to overanalyzing and an increased risk of stress, anxiety, and depression.

Let’s step back in time for a moment. Growing up, where did your understanding of success come from?

For the author, it came from authority figures such as parents and teachers. They taught him that success was all about attaining things like a college education or material possessions. But later on, he realized that this definition of success was based on what others thought of him. He was constantly trying to attain more, and the pressure – and possessions – began to weigh on him.

In the previous blink, you learned how to define success for yourself by identifying your purpose. But once you’ve determined what you want from life, how do you ensure that you get it?

The answer is more obvious than you may think: you can manifest the things you want in life through positive thinking. In a nutshell, positive thinking means remaining optimistic, even in the face of setbacks. Having such a mindset fuels you as you chase your purpose, making you more productive and reducing the chances of burnout.

Now that you’re armed with an optimistic outlook, the power of mindfulness, and a renewed sense of purpose, you’re ready for the final step of lifescaling – achieving focus and productivity.

When you can easily and intensely focus on meaningful projects without succumbing to distractions, you’re doing what’s called deep work. This means mastering challenging information and producing high-quality work in shorter periods of time. This sounds like a superpower, sure, but it’s actually a skill that anyone can learn if they dedicate time and space to it.