Why Your Work Is Too Easy

Why Your Work Is Too Easy

Most people think of stress as impairing our ability to focus, but that's actually not true. When we are stressed, it involves the deployment, the release of adrenaline, epinephrine, and that adrenaline narrows our vision to a more tunnel-like focus.

They did a study on 47 healthy males. They assessed concentration performance using the d2 test of attention before and 30 min after the stress or control task. They measured salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase repeatedly before and up to 1 hr after stress.

The stress group showed a significantly stronger improvement of concentration performance compared to the control group, p = .042. Any p-score less than 0.05 is considered significant and 0.042<0.05.

So it's significant. But why? How did stress improve concentration?

In simple terms, if a task is too easy, your brain doesn't release the neuromodulators it needs for focus (like adrenaline).

Let's look at a video game for example. When you get stuck on a level. Why can you focus without light, caffeine, alpha gpc, etc.? Because the challenge, the stress... create your focus. If the game is too easy (or too hard), you don't have the urge to try harder.

So let's make today's 90-minute bout like the game.

Your action for the day

What's a difficult task you need to get done soon? It could be a presentation, a new feature, an boring subject, or starting a business you've always wanted. All these bug you in some way. They activate your focus neurons.

According to the study, this agitation, fear of failure, self-doubt, challenge, or deadlines trigger your focus and improve performance.

Actually, I stress every time I write the email. I'm scared you don't like it. Or it's not good enough. And the stress pushes me to focus and try my best. Otherwise, I'd just watch sit and watch youtube. So thanks Reader. Thanks for stressing me out :) <3

You can have this focus too... as long as there's some challenge. So today, during your 90-minute bout, dive into the difficulty. The more difficult, the easier it is for you to focus.

Choose and work on something challenging.

Optionally, write down what you will do to remember it later. Dw, I don't get your data.

Great job Reader.

Your 90-minute block

Day 1: Time your sessions to 90 minutes ✅​
Day 2: Start with a short warm-up ✅​
Day 3: Narrow your eyes to a visual target ✅
​Day 4: Increase the lights around you ✅
​Day 5: Push to work on harder things ✅

Goal: 90 minutes of deep, productive work.