Future idea for THINKERS Roundup: fundamental attribution error cognitive bias and how it relates to 2020 election. Maybe it can serve as a subtle reminder to everyone during this polarized time that we should seek to understand each other first, before we condemn. 

There's one other big takeaway. We should focus less on what we're doing and more on how we are being. This study also found that mind wandering has more to do with unhappiness than the activities we engage in. This isn't the way we normally think. We generally think that doing pleasant things makes us happy.  But these researchers found that activities account for 4.6 percent of our happiness. Being fully here, instead of time travelling through the mind, accounts for around 10.8 percent. 

So how can you shift from mind wandering to focus? Enter Notice-Shift-Rewire -- a tool that you can use to radically change your mental state, anytime, anywhere.

Looking at activity in these brain networks this way suggests that when you catch your mind wandering, you are going through a process of recognizing, and shifting out of, default mode processing by engaging numerous attention networks. Understanding the way the brain alternates between focused and distracted states has implications for a wide variety of everyday tasks.

For example, when your mind wandered off in that meeting, it might help to know you’re slipping into default mode—and you can deliberately bring yourself back to the moment. That’s an ability that can improve with training.

David Allen, productivity speaker and author of Getting Things Done, recommends doing what he calls a “core dump”. This involves writing down every task, activity, and project you need to address. This could range from picking up milk on the way home, to a multi-person project at work. Writing down every “to-do” item you can think of clears space in your head for more important topics.

You can also use a technique called “morning pages”, which was pioneered by Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way. Morning pages involves completing three pages (around 750 words) of stream-of-consciousness writing. Through doing this first thing each morning, you clear your head in preparation for the day’s most important thinking.