A good friend recently reminded me of a quote from Virginia Woolf: ‘No need to hurry. I’m skipping from one task to the next – write this post, go to the gym, organise dinner, walk the dog, clean the kitchen – and I’m doing it at speed.

I’m teaching less this year, and I have a lot more free time. To remind myself of some of the key ideas from Hari’s book, and to refocus on the importance of focusing. This post is an effort to get back on track. I started strong, but over the last week or so I’ve noticed old habits creeping back in. I planned to dedicate more time to ‘mind-wandering’. I resolved to shut down all my social media tabs while writing, and to spend less time ‘doom scrolling’. I read Stolen Focus about a month ago, and when I finished it I made some promises to myself regarding my attention. And we are sacrificing the quality of our lives for this constant distraction. We never stay with one thing long enough to really engage with it, to sink into it, and find that flow (also sometimes known as ‘the zone’). Every moment of our lives is fragmented: we are doing so many things at once, and none of them deeply. In particular, I related to the idea of ‘flow’ – how wonderful this state is when we achieve it, and how these days it seems harder and harder to achieve. This book resonated with me from the first chapter, as I think it will with most people. But I didn’t realise just how deep this problem runs, and the important things constant distraction is causing us to lose. Before reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hari I knew my mind was busy.

Focus johann hari