I am reading a great book on attention by Gloria Mark, because I am motivated to be mentally, physically, and emotionally fit to live my best life. I know I am addicted to my email – and I would be to other social media platforms if I were on them. So I picked up this book with the unconscious assumption that I may discover ways to strengthen my willpower against checking email all the time, so I can have more time for other pursuits.
One big takeaway so far is that our attention spans have shrunk – this is intuitive. Also intuitive is that we need little breaks from focus in order to restore our cognitive resources. We may be able to get into flow occasionally, especially with creative pursuits, but we have to build our focus muscle to get there. And the more we need to tune out distractions, the more resources we expend and the more we need to rest.
What has surprised me is that easy tasks on our phone do tend to be little breaks that restore our energy. I have always thought of these as wasted energy and was so surprised to see they actually have a restorative component to be able to return to focus. The difficulty is how addictive YouTube, games, email, and social media can be where we spend much more time than we anticipated on these breaks.
So one question I have is surrounding our ability to focus. How much are we really capable of focusing? When thinking about what our bodies are capable of, it is useful to compare to our bodies. We intuitively know we need rest after intense physical activity. We also know it is uncomfortable to push to our physical limits, and there is a period of discomfort that makes us stronger. However, we can also push too hard and go into injury that requires more rest before we are able to physically perform again.
Metaphorically, and perhaps physiologically, I wonder if our ability to focus follows similar rules. Perhaps we can have explosive periods of attention that require long periods of rest, like after running a fast mile. Or, we can have sustained activity that requires less focus but less output, like strolling 20 miles. So intensity of focus determines the amount of time to create great things, as well as the amount of rest needed after.
Culturally, there seems to be an interesting transition with work where intense focus and attention are required but still within the gray area of a 40-hour work week. For people doing highly creative, intense thought work, it doesn’t make sense to maintain high output for 8 hours a day. For example, I can run one 7-minute mile, I can also walk 20 miles at a time. But I am unsure I can sustain a 7-minute mile pace for 20 miles. If I were to try, I don’t imagine it would be healthy to do so for 5 days in a row.
I am looking forward to reading more to gain a realistic expectation of what I can do with my attention, and structure my life in a way that I can have meaningful rest after periods of intense focus.
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