I was on holiday last week, what I would call a proper holiday, with sunshine and loungers and a pool to cool off in. After two long years in a pandemic with holidays at home in the rain (and in one case an unbearable heatwave that required a pool and air con in a tiny cottage that had neither) or staycations about as relaxing as working seven days per week, I was ready for a break. Someone else to make my bed and tidy around after me, bring me food and drinks directly to my sun lounger whilst I flicked through magazines, chatted with the girls, and snoozed. Happy days.
As much as I enjoyed it, I had also downloaded three books I’d wanted to read for ages. That’s the thing I love about the kindle, no carting around heavy books anymore. Unless you want to (one of us did, she likes a hard back book). I’m always the same, as soon as I’ve wound down, my brain starts ticking over and I want to read something. Both books I picked up I first heard about when listening to a podcast. Feel better, live more by Dr. Rangan Chatergee was recommended to me by my GP, a wise and sensible lady who helped me recognise that the wrist pain I had gone to see her for was probably a physical manifestation of the stress I was feeling at the time, trying to juggle all the balls when my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Sometimes, or oftentimes in my experience, we think things will be okay if we can just push through “this” and get to the other side. We can do ourselves immeasurable harm in doing so, but it can be hard to see that ourselves and we often need someone else to point it out to us. Talking through family medical history with this GP made me realise that for me, the outcome could be rheumatoid arthritis, and having seen its effect on my aunties and my dad I didn’t need telling twice, I followed her advice.
It took me a while to start listening to the podcast, but when I did, I ended up binge listening and covering a lot of back episodes to build my understanding of what I can do differently to improve my life and my health. If you haven’t listened to it before I would encourage you to try an episode on a subject you’re interested in. Most of the guests are fantastic story tellers as well as incredibly knowledgeable about their subject, which helps the message stick. One of my favourites was an interview with Johann Hari, talking about the power of connection and telling a (true) story about a community in Berlin that came together despite their considerable differences, to fight for better conditions. People of completely different backgrounds and beliefs (Muslim, Punk, Gay) realised during this time that they had more in common than they realised. His theory is that one of the causes of depression is this lack of connection, so if you’re interested it’s a good episode to start with.
Just before I went on holiday I was listening to the podcast and recognised Johann’s voice talking about a different subject, this time about attention. My ears pricked up at this point as I’ve recently been finding it harder than ever to get in the zone of focus, for many reasons, but I thought I’d likely pick up some ideas to help, and I did. I downloaded the book and impatiently started it before I went on holiday, soon running out of time to read it due to the phenomenon of having to get everything done and in a good place before you go so that you know you’re not coming back to chaos in work, the home, the business, etc. By the time we get on holiday we really really need it!!
So many things stood out for me when I was reading this book, literally ever chapter I was thinking about something I needed to do differently or wanted to tell the kids about, which I think is the mark of a good book. These aren’t in any particular order and I’m paraphrasing based on my take of the point made…this isn’t an essay with quotes and footnotes, it’s intended to be easier to read and understand but it does mean your interpretation might be different if you read the book so I just wanted to make that clear.
One of the points that was mentioned in the podcast and in the book that really stood out to me was that the average office worker focuses for three minutes. Just three! And for teenagers, their average focus is 65 seconds. This blows my mind but also makes complete sense to me when I think about it. Let’s take the office worker first of all. We’re not really office workers at the moment are we, in the sense that for the past two years a lot of people have worked from home. As well as the distractions this brings (parcel deliveries, kids wanting to chat, dogs barking) we also want to stay connected with colleagues that we don’t see. And maybe we feel like we need to be more available than ever to prove our worth. Instant message software literally invites people to interrupt us throughout the working day, so no wonder focus only lasts a few minutes. Every time we switch our attention, it takes us time to get our focus back. So if you’re having trouble staying on task, minimising interruptions might make a difference. I’ve tried using a do not disturb function but find people are still willing to disturb so I prefer signing out completely and picking up messages intermittently. So far, no emergencies and nothing that couldn’t wait.
With hindsight, I realised that this was a practice I used to do regularly pre-pandemic, but in trying to stay connected during this time it’s been easy to fall into habits that aren’t so healthy and this is one that I’m changing for my own sanity. Another thing I do is make sure notifications are muted so I’m not hearing an incessant ping as that’s also distracting, and finally, I’ve returned to using good old paper and pen. I was told years ago that connections are made neurologically when we write something down rather than type it and it’s another habit I’ve got out of in the name of technological advances enabling me to type notes in shared systems, that I’ve realised doesn’t actually pay off. So some ideas to try if you’re finding it hard to focus too.
Now the teenage focus time of 65 seconds was even scarier than the office worker, but sharing a house with two of them I can see there are challenges. Social media and notifications are frequent interruptions and the pandemic resulted in a big switch to online learning which has continued and increased screen time as a result. I don’t think there are any easy answers but awareness is important and so I make sure to talk to my kids about their usage, and I’ve also given them a summary of the key points from this book to plant the seed as a first step. Time away from devices is important and my kids both play sport and that means downtime during training and matches, but they still use their phones more than I’d like. Not sure how to solve that but if you know, answers on a postcard please!
One of the more sinister parts of the book was about technology and social media companies and if I had to summarise I would say the longer you are using their platform the more money they make and therefore they spend all of their time and effort keeping you on it for as long as possible. The even less ethical part is that they show you what they want you to see, rather than what you want to see, to achieve that. Unfortunately we are more likely to stay on longer if we’re enraged and so the controversial posts will be in your feed more than the nice happy calm ones: I can’t help but feel like the algorithm is another way to say manipulation, and it’s very telling that a lot of the people who own these companies don’t allow their children to use the technology they have developed. One change I’ve made since reading this book is I’ve added screen time limits for social media. If companies are using their vast resources to keep me on their platform I’m confident my willpower won’t stack up against that so putting a limit on the time I spend means I can still use it but far more intentionally than I was previously. Even if I wasn’t using it for my business I don’t think I’d delete it as I use it to stay in touch with long distance friends, but people I know have taken this approach and felt better for not using it at all so it depends what works for you.
Something even more sinister is going on underneath all of this though. Data gathering. Every time you click on something, watch something, comment on something, the technology and the platforms you use are collecting data about you. Data that they will build and analyse until they know more about you than you know yourself, know what you want and present it to you before you even know. Whilst I was reading this book on holiday one part mentioned flow and doing something to get into that state and I was thinking about learning a musical instrument. I ruled out piano as I don’t have one but remembered there’s a guitar in the loft and wrote myself a note on my phone saying simply Guitar? and the next time I opened social media, a marketplace notification was presented to me with a guitar for sale in my home town. Now that freaked me out! Cue immediately checking and updating settings. Data is collected from everywhere and even the most innocuous of places so spend some time checking your privacy settings and updating them if you’re concerned.
One thing I personally need to improve on is getting more downtime, hence the guitar note I made! I regularly fall into the trap of thinking I have to be productive every minute of the day, forgetting that’s not possible and the more we try to do it, the less productive we are. Johann talks about mind wandering which is a lovely phrase, and something that’s necessary for our brains to function. Time away from focused work is needed so that information can be processed and stored and connections formed, which is why we often solve problems when we step away from them (in the shower is always mentioned here but I’m more of a bath person!). Recently one of my kids did a time and motion activity for himself and one for me and it was only when it was as down on paper that I realised I don’t build enough mind wandering time into my day. I also don’t build enough exercise in so one think I’m doing is making more time to get outside in the fresh air each day for some thinking time.
The last point that really resonated with me in the book was about giving children the freedom to do the things we used to love as children. More than ever our kids have structured activities (organised sport and hobbies) but they learn so much from having the space and time to get bored, to organise their own play, have their own adventures and navigate relationships and challenges with friends and other kids. I suppose the principle is the same as for us adults, they need down time and mind wandering activities just like we do, and maybe more. Just before the pandemic started my kids were at an age where they wanted to be out and about with their mates more, and then unfortunately they couldn’t have the freedom they wanted. I can honestly say that made life easier for me as prior to that there had been a couple of A&E visits as a result of injuries obtained when they were out on their own, after which I felt on edge whenever they went out. I know it’s not rational and both times they were helped by friends and adults who were there, for which I’m very grateful, but the instinct to protect our children is strong and after these events I was never relaxed when they were off doing their thing. A couple of years later and they’re both older and more sensible and I’m more relaxed, but it’s been a difficult balance to strike and I can sympathise with parents who are reluctant to let their kids have the freedom to be out and about on their own as there is an element of risk involved. I suppose focusing on the positives the experiences have taught them valuable lessons and reminded me that there are good people in the world who will help when it’s needed. Whenever they went out I would always tell them to be careful, and one day my youngest replied that he would be careful until I told him otherwise and on that basis I don’t say it anymore!
So, that’s what I’ve taken from this insightful book, and the changes I’ve implemented to be more intentional about developing my attention and focus, or taking it back from the forces that are chipping away at it. I hope you’ve found it useful, I’d recommend reading the book if you want to find out more as I’ve just scratched the surface here, but I hope it’s helped you become more aware of the impact of technology and how we can start to prevent some of the negative consequences we are getting from it.