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Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life
A revolutionary look at how what we pay attention to determines how we experience life Acclaimed behavioral science writer Winifred Gallagher's Rapt makes the radical argument that much of the quality of your life depends not on fame or fortune, beauty or brains, fate or coincidence, but on what you choose to pay attention to. Rapt introduces a diverse cast of characters, from researchers to artists to ranchers, to illustrate the art of living the interested life. As their stories show, by focusing on the most positive and productive elements of any situation, you can shape your inner experience and expand your world. By learning to focus, you can improve your concentration, broaden your inner horizons, and most important, feel what it means to be fully alive.
268 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 295 reviews
October 12, 2009
I'm disappointed that this book about attention was not, itself, more sharply focused. Instead of building towards a thesis or providing an organized survey of her theme, author Winifred Gallagher begins and ends "Rapt" with scattered essays that don't seem to be much about focus and attention at all.
The meat of the book is sandwiched in the middle, where the author guides the reader through the leading research on focus and attention. We learn that attention can be diffuse or focused, and there are benefits to either state. We also learn that meditation and mental exercises have been shown to improve the mind's ability to attend.
As someone with a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder, I was especially disappointed at how few words Gallagher spent on this central issue. A long digression into the power of "now" -- with odes to Eckhart Tolle -- tells us that our lives have more meaning when we pay attention to the present moment. Tolle wrote a book along this theme, which I hope is less superfluous than Gallager's summary. She would have her readers surrender thoughts of the future, or any sort of social consciousness, in order to breathe in breathe out breathe in breathe out and live life in the moment.
The meat of the book is sandwiched in the middle, where the author guides the reader through the leading research on focus and attention. We learn that attention can be diffuse or focused, and there are benefits to either state. We also learn that meditation and mental exercises have been shown to improve the mind's ability to attend.
As someone with a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder, I was especially disappointed at how few words Gallagher spent on this central issue. A long digression into the power of "now" -- with odes to Eckhart Tolle -- tells us that our lives have more meaning when we pay attention to the present moment. Tolle wrote a book along this theme, which I hope is less superfluous than Gallager's summary. She would have her readers surrender thoughts of the future, or any sort of social consciousness, in order to breathe in breathe out breathe in breathe out and live life in the moment.
June 24, 2009
This book has changed the way I work. Author Winifred Gallagher has marshaled quite a bit of research into fourteen chapters and has made it approachable with a good takeaway at the end of each chapter that can be integrated into several areas of life where attention is important. If you have read Malcolm Gladwell and John Medina, much of what you read here will not be new.
Gallagher learned about the power of attention for ill or for good when she was diagnosed with cancer and decided not to let it "monopolize [her:] attention" as it wanted but instead to "focus on [her:] life instead." As she endured treatment for the illness, she began paying attention to the present, realizing that it was all she had. The experience was a catalyst to the writing of Rapt.
Her thesis, and the realization she got during treatment was that "life is the creation of what you focus on -- and what you don't."
There is much here on attention and how it works and how we are misusing technology to our detriment and to the detriment of those around us.
By and large, we are not multitaskers. Some repetitive or physical actions can be done together -- the proverbial act of walking and chewing bubblegum. However, we aren't programmed to do things such as talk and check email or to drive and text. One activity or both will suffer as a consequence.
In fact, it is hard to be truly productive unless you enter the "flow" state, which requires focused concentrated effort ninety to one hundred twenty minutes. Any interruption, even if for a minute or less (consider the little guitar noise on outlook telling you about a new message, or the siren call of the blackberry's buzz even when you don't actually read the message), is a derailing event requiring about fifteen minute's total recovery time. As a result, an entire day can pass with the result of no substantively completed work but with lots of emails read even if not answered.
Her chapter on creativity is equally compelling. In short, a spark of creative inspiration is the result of hours of contemplation or study. If you constantly short-circuit attention, you are not likely to be the next Wordsworth or experience some sort of creative spark no matter your chosen profession.
Finally, the chapter on relationships and quality of life is worth the read. How you frame the action of those around you shapes fundamentally how successful you are in your friendships, lovelife, and career. It all comes down to showing up and attending to what is on your agenda day in and day out, focusing positively on those around you, and framing the people and events you encounter with a focus on the positive. Most significantly, it comes down to being fully present moment to moment.
Such is the difference, Gallagher suggest between a life lived fully and a life lived that is a nightmare from which you will hopefully wake up (think the buddha's enlightment)before it is too late.
Gallagher learned about the power of attention for ill or for good when she was diagnosed with cancer and decided not to let it "monopolize [her:] attention" as it wanted but instead to "focus on [her:] life instead." As she endured treatment for the illness, she began paying attention to the present, realizing that it was all she had. The experience was a catalyst to the writing of Rapt.
Her thesis, and the realization she got during treatment was that "life is the creation of what you focus on -- and what you don't."
There is much here on attention and how it works and how we are misusing technology to our detriment and to the detriment of those around us.
By and large, we are not multitaskers. Some repetitive or physical actions can be done together -- the proverbial act of walking and chewing bubblegum. However, we aren't programmed to do things such as talk and check email or to drive and text. One activity or both will suffer as a consequence.
In fact, it is hard to be truly productive unless you enter the "flow" state, which requires focused concentrated effort ninety to one hundred twenty minutes. Any interruption, even if for a minute or less (consider the little guitar noise on outlook telling you about a new message, or the siren call of the blackberry's buzz even when you don't actually read the message), is a derailing event requiring about fifteen minute's total recovery time. As a result, an entire day can pass with the result of no substantively completed work but with lots of emails read even if not answered.
Her chapter on creativity is equally compelling. In short, a spark of creative inspiration is the result of hours of contemplation or study. If you constantly short-circuit attention, you are not likely to be the next Wordsworth or experience some sort of creative spark no matter your chosen profession.
Finally, the chapter on relationships and quality of life is worth the read. How you frame the action of those around you shapes fundamentally how successful you are in your friendships, lovelife, and career. It all comes down to showing up and attending to what is on your agenda day in and day out, focusing positively on those around you, and framing the people and events you encounter with a focus on the positive. Most significantly, it comes down to being fully present moment to moment.
Such is the difference, Gallagher suggest between a life lived fully and a life lived that is a nightmare from which you will hopefully wake up (think the buddha's enlightment)before it is too late.
July 11, 2017
"All day long, you are selectively paying attention to something, and much more often than you may suspect, you can take charge of this process to good effect. Indeed, your ability to focus on this and suppress that is the key to controlling your experience and, ultimately, your well-being."
Gallagher explains that our life consists of what we focus on, and by noticing where we are placing our attentions, we can enhance or even change our experience of life. I especially enjoyed her illustration that the phrase "paying attention" has a monetary aspect to it for a reason--we have limited stores of focus, attention, and will power. When we spend our attention on one thing, we leave less attention in reserves for other things. Attention is also like a muscle; The more it is practiced, the more it can do, and the longer you can hold focus.
I also liked her idea of taking a "daily vacation" -- a period of 20 or 30 minutes each day where you do something that delights you, then looking back that evening and rehashing the experience of that pleasurable moment. All in all, I enjoyed this book, although in retrospect I kind of wish that I had read it with my eyes instead of just listening to it on audible because I would've liked to take notes. I always listen to audible books in the car so that doesn't afford me the opportunity to write down quotes that I like, etc. Perhaps worth reading again sometime!
Gallagher explains that our life consists of what we focus on, and by noticing where we are placing our attentions, we can enhance or even change our experience of life. I especially enjoyed her illustration that the phrase "paying attention" has a monetary aspect to it for a reason--we have limited stores of focus, attention, and will power. When we spend our attention on one thing, we leave less attention in reserves for other things. Attention is also like a muscle; The more it is practiced, the more it can do, and the longer you can hold focus.
I also liked her idea of taking a "daily vacation" -- a period of 20 or 30 minutes each day where you do something that delights you, then looking back that evening and rehashing the experience of that pleasurable moment. All in all, I enjoyed this book, although in retrospect I kind of wish that I had read it with my eyes instead of just listening to it on audible because I would've liked to take notes. I always listen to audible books in the car so that doesn't afford me the opportunity to write down quotes that I like, etc. Perhaps worth reading again sometime!
October 7, 2010
Rapt caught my attention after reading an excerpt in the Utne Reader. The thesis was pretty straightforward – what you focus on determines your experience of life. I was intrigued because I had always struggled with paying quality attention to my children, ostensibly the focus of my work as a stay-at-home mother. I wanted to experience my life with them better, and I wanted something more than a simplistic parenting book that suggested setting aside 20 minutes of play without distraction each day with each child.
Winifred Gallagher covers a lot of ground in the psychological study of attention and focus, from bottom-up attention to your immediate circumstances and needs – the demands of the world to top-down attention that you direct to things that you choose (like your job, family, or hobbies).
Gallagher argues that attention is selective—one can’t focus on everything. Further, emotions guide attention, more often than not to negative places as a measure of self-preservation, and it is up to the individual to guide his attention to more positive emotions that actually expand his ability to focus. Rather than seeking to be happy at all times, Gallagher shows that one must guard what one attends to, with the example that older people are often better able to focus on the simple pleasures of life. She sites research that shows that what one pays attention to shapes her brain and behavior.
One of the more interesting parts of Gallagher’s book dealt with intimate relationships within families. Rapt attention is crucial for these relationships to work, but also important is the ability to see the other person’s world not only from one’s own point of view.
Gallagher advocates identifying those activities to which one can pay rapt attention and reach the state of “flow.” Ideally, if one’s work fell into this category, it would seem not like work at all, but play. Flow is so arresting to the individual that he will continue to challenge himself at the activity to stay in the flow.
The import of attention is also revealed in decision making (we often attend to our memories rather than our experiences) and creativity (great work requires rapt attention). The distractions of modern life – particularly, electronic – and desire to multi-task are shown to impede productivity and real learning in children. Finally, mental and even physical ailments are often grounded in poorly directed attention.
At the end of the book, Gallagher’s sometimes annoying propensity to be politically correct and non-religious gives way to her reverence for particularly Tibetan Buddhism, and the rapt attention to the present that is the end goal of much meditative practice.
Nonetheless, Gallagher’s thoughtful book provides mental fodder for this mother’s desire to focus on the moment with her children, to identify individual motivations that can guide my top-down, chosen attention to that which my remembering (not experiencing) focus has determine to hold the most value in my daily life – my children.
Winifred Gallagher covers a lot of ground in the psychological study of attention and focus, from bottom-up attention to your immediate circumstances and needs – the demands of the world to top-down attention that you direct to things that you choose (like your job, family, or hobbies).
Gallagher argues that attention is selective—one can’t focus on everything. Further, emotions guide attention, more often than not to negative places as a measure of self-preservation, and it is up to the individual to guide his attention to more positive emotions that actually expand his ability to focus. Rather than seeking to be happy at all times, Gallagher shows that one must guard what one attends to, with the example that older people are often better able to focus on the simple pleasures of life. She sites research that shows that what one pays attention to shapes her brain and behavior.
One of the more interesting parts of Gallagher’s book dealt with intimate relationships within families. Rapt attention is crucial for these relationships to work, but also important is the ability to see the other person’s world not only from one’s own point of view.
Gallagher advocates identifying those activities to which one can pay rapt attention and reach the state of “flow.” Ideally, if one’s work fell into this category, it would seem not like work at all, but play. Flow is so arresting to the individual that he will continue to challenge himself at the activity to stay in the flow.
The import of attention is also revealed in decision making (we often attend to our memories rather than our experiences) and creativity (great work requires rapt attention). The distractions of modern life – particularly, electronic – and desire to multi-task are shown to impede productivity and real learning in children. Finally, mental and even physical ailments are often grounded in poorly directed attention.
At the end of the book, Gallagher’s sometimes annoying propensity to be politically correct and non-religious gives way to her reverence for particularly Tibetan Buddhism, and the rapt attention to the present that is the end goal of much meditative practice.
Nonetheless, Gallagher’s thoughtful book provides mental fodder for this mother’s desire to focus on the moment with her children, to identify individual motivations that can guide my top-down, chosen attention to that which my remembering (not experiencing) focus has determine to hold the most value in my daily life – my children.
May 28, 2009
Like most people who read Rapt, I came to the book prehooked. I've never been much of an ace at focus – I was a poor student all the way through college, when I not so much snapped suddenly to attention as graduated to a curriculum based more on a few large tests than endless worksheets to be turned in on the hour – and I was suspected of ADHD more than once as a child and teen. Like many, I never really got a conclusive answer. I certainly didn't feel like I had an attention problem, just that a lot of stuff that I was expected to pay attention to was boring. While I've spent much of life feeling scattered, forgetting to do things and demonstrating a definite overcommitment to considering how bored I'll be as the foremost consideration in most of my major life decisions, I've always managed to get through everything okay. Until recently. It came to me at work, 25 browser windows open at a time, that I wasn't actually doing any one thing for longer than seven minutes or so. After becoming aware of this mostly unconscious trend in my task management, I tried to make it stop and failed completely. Focus never came, and I could almost feel a frantic buzzing to do something else at the very moment I tried to exert myself. Once I became aware of it at work, I quickly noticed I was doing the same thing at home.
So I came to Rapt, like many, in the posture of supplication. And Rapt has a great hook. It is, I'm sure, selling like prohibition whiskey. Feel distracted? Have trouble focusing? Wonder if all of this multitasking is having an effect on your brain chemistry? Buy my book! I can dress your attentional problems up in The Omnivore's Dilemma style science-lite and fix you right up! The book practically sells itself on premise alone. It's a much closer question whether it actually delivers.
Gallagher is quick to identify the trifecta of major attentional issues: ADD, the proliferation of electronic devices, and the possible overdiagnosis of hard pharmas like Ritalin to children who are just distracted, moody or overly enthusiastic, not “ADD”. Unfortunately, her positions on these issues aren't very interesting. Drugs are helpful when used correctly, electronic devices are doing something to our brain chemistry, and we are probably overmedicating children. With the issue of Ritalin in particular, Gallagher doesn't tack too close to taking anything approaching a position – she gives us a few cautionary tales of the spread of recreational use and abuse of these drugs as study aids and professional “helpers” for adults, but stops short of taking a real stand against their use.
The book is probably best in the early going – the pseudo-science of perception and focus is well dissected with cute but effective analogies about birds, the distinction between top-down and bottom-up attention is well-integrated into our experience of a hectic, electronic world, and the lengthy discussion about the essential elasticity of brain activity – that it learns through repetition and is profoundly altered by focus and conscious awareness – is laid out with enough precision to justify its position at the center of Gallagher's ultimate argument that only a mindful life can ever be a good or complete life.
And if this sounds like a Buddhist trope repackaged as neurology mated with self-help, you're already well ahead of the game – after a lot of discussion about ADHD, drugs, perception and some terrible digressions into cultural relativism (Asians are like this, Americans are like this, it's very hard to be an American, what with all this noise and toys), Gallagher ultimate arrives at the fairly complete conclusion that meditation is the answer. For everything. She has the good sense to seem a little embarrassed that this is the sum total of what she has to show for all of the build-up, but that hint of ambivalence actually gives the book a lot of its strength. You can almost see her spreading her hands and shrugging a little in front of a cadre of confused publishers and saying “Yeah, I'm surprised too, but this meditation thing really does seem to work, like, look at these EKG scans/assorted neurological mumbo jumbo! I'm as wowed as you guys are!” I wasn't quite able to talk myself into setting the book down, grabbing a pillow, lighting some incense and focusing on my breathing, but that's what she's ultimately asking us to do and she believes, and has some statistics to prove, that focusing on your breathing and expanding that into a mindfulness of your activity might be the crucial key to a focused life.
Oh, and turn off your goddamn E-Mail.
My big gripe with this isn't the meditation bit – there are literally thousands of years of empirical evidence sitting solidly at her side on that claim, and I'm glad the science and the practice have come around to the same felicitous conclusion, especially when the other option is Ritalin – but rather on the idea that focus is the key to a healthy life.
Absent from her lauding statements about Asian (I'm almost tempted to say Oriental here, her distinctions are that sweeping) vs American capacity for focus is the seemingly obvious problem of obsessiveness, Japanese and Korean students committing suicide in the face of poor exam scores, the overwhelming social pressures that create that singular focus and the various physical and psychological problems that come in with it. And even this is fairly culturally nuanced, but there's really no excuse for the omission of a serious discussion about the perils of focus, from anorexia, depression, stalking and megalomania all the way down the line to how profoundly we're effected by losing our hair. I am willing to accept that meditation is good, that mindfulness can be empowering and that focus, more than talent, ultimately dictates much of what we accomplish. But hell, lady, I could just as easily be focusing obsessively as focusing mindfully, and meditation doesn't quite cover what you skipped over.
So I came to Rapt, like many, in the posture of supplication. And Rapt has a great hook. It is, I'm sure, selling like prohibition whiskey. Feel distracted? Have trouble focusing? Wonder if all of this multitasking is having an effect on your brain chemistry? Buy my book! I can dress your attentional problems up in The Omnivore's Dilemma style science-lite and fix you right up! The book practically sells itself on premise alone. It's a much closer question whether it actually delivers.
Gallagher is quick to identify the trifecta of major attentional issues: ADD, the proliferation of electronic devices, and the possible overdiagnosis of hard pharmas like Ritalin to children who are just distracted, moody or overly enthusiastic, not “ADD”. Unfortunately, her positions on these issues aren't very interesting. Drugs are helpful when used correctly, electronic devices are doing something to our brain chemistry, and we are probably overmedicating children. With the issue of Ritalin in particular, Gallagher doesn't tack too close to taking anything approaching a position – she gives us a few cautionary tales of the spread of recreational use and abuse of these drugs as study aids and professional “helpers” for adults, but stops short of taking a real stand against their use.
The book is probably best in the early going – the pseudo-science of perception and focus is well dissected with cute but effective analogies about birds, the distinction between top-down and bottom-up attention is well-integrated into our experience of a hectic, electronic world, and the lengthy discussion about the essential elasticity of brain activity – that it learns through repetition and is profoundly altered by focus and conscious awareness – is laid out with enough precision to justify its position at the center of Gallagher's ultimate argument that only a mindful life can ever be a good or complete life.
And if this sounds like a Buddhist trope repackaged as neurology mated with self-help, you're already well ahead of the game – after a lot of discussion about ADHD, drugs, perception and some terrible digressions into cultural relativism (Asians are like this, Americans are like this, it's very hard to be an American, what with all this noise and toys), Gallagher ultimate arrives at the fairly complete conclusion that meditation is the answer. For everything. She has the good sense to seem a little embarrassed that this is the sum total of what she has to show for all of the build-up, but that hint of ambivalence actually gives the book a lot of its strength. You can almost see her spreading her hands and shrugging a little in front of a cadre of confused publishers and saying “Yeah, I'm surprised too, but this meditation thing really does seem to work, like, look at these EKG scans/assorted neurological mumbo jumbo! I'm as wowed as you guys are!” I wasn't quite able to talk myself into setting the book down, grabbing a pillow, lighting some incense and focusing on my breathing, but that's what she's ultimately asking us to do and she believes, and has some statistics to prove, that focusing on your breathing and expanding that into a mindfulness of your activity might be the crucial key to a focused life.
Oh, and turn off your goddamn E-Mail.
My big gripe with this isn't the meditation bit – there are literally thousands of years of empirical evidence sitting solidly at her side on that claim, and I'm glad the science and the practice have come around to the same felicitous conclusion, especially when the other option is Ritalin – but rather on the idea that focus is the key to a healthy life.
Absent from her lauding statements about Asian (I'm almost tempted to say Oriental here, her distinctions are that sweeping) vs American capacity for focus is the seemingly obvious problem of obsessiveness, Japanese and Korean students committing suicide in the face of poor exam scores, the overwhelming social pressures that create that singular focus and the various physical and psychological problems that come in with it. And even this is fairly culturally nuanced, but there's really no excuse for the omission of a serious discussion about the perils of focus, from anorexia, depression, stalking and megalomania all the way down the line to how profoundly we're effected by losing our hair. I am willing to accept that meditation is good, that mindfulness can be empowering and that focus, more than talent, ultimately dictates much of what we accomplish. But hell, lady, I could just as easily be focusing obsessively as focusing mindfully, and meditation doesn't quite cover what you skipped over.
April 22, 2016
I hate not finishing a book but honestly if a book about attention and focus is unable to hold mine while reading it's not meant to be.
October 12, 2009
Winifred Gallagher’s Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life readily merits its readers’ sustained attention. Gallagher persuasively shows how whatever we focus on is—quite literally—how we spend our lives. Our attention, in other words, is like currency. So the ways we choose to spend it determine the caliber and character of our experience.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi introduced us to Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience in 1991. New developments in neuroscience have since revealed even more about how brains function. Rapt thus works, in many ways, like an updated version of Flow (both of which are indebted, of course, to William James’s seminal Principles of Psychology, 1890). Yet Rapt draws from ancient wisdom traditions as well as from cutting-edge research in brain science. And Gallagher adduces compelling examples from the arts and humanities as well as controlled laboratory experiments.
We thus learn why—and how—mindfulness trumps multitasking (which she cleverly dubs “focus interruptus”), for instance. With chapters on creativity, productivity, relationships, motivation, “disordered attention” (including ADHD, e.g.), and health, Rapt offers a comprehensive synthesis of how the ways we spend our precious attention determine our quality of life.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi introduced us to Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience in 1991. New developments in neuroscience have since revealed even more about how brains function. Rapt thus works, in many ways, like an updated version of Flow (both of which are indebted, of course, to William James’s seminal Principles of Psychology, 1890). Yet Rapt draws from ancient wisdom traditions as well as from cutting-edge research in brain science. And Gallagher adduces compelling examples from the arts and humanities as well as controlled laboratory experiments.
We thus learn why—and how—mindfulness trumps multitasking (which she cleverly dubs “focus interruptus”), for instance. With chapters on creativity, productivity, relationships, motivation, “disordered attention” (including ADHD, e.g.), and health, Rapt offers a comprehensive synthesis of how the ways we spend our precious attention determine our quality of life.
May 26, 2009
Rapt provides a survey of a wide breadth of research on attention, yet manages to obfuscate more than it reveals. In one chapter, attention and conscious experience are synonymous; in another, implicit learning is the apogee of well-directed attention. The author broaches claims with no substantive evidence, such as the idea that perpetual interactions in a multimedia context breed superficial brains. Such claims are bereft of the surveyed research because there is no research to back them up! Gallagher ends with a treatise on meditation, extolling the profound benefits of meditation without even attempting to explain the underlying mechanisms. Just to ensure I’m sufficiently annoyed, the text is filled with perfectly legal but nonetheless irksome editorial choices: “cortexes” instead of “cortices;” “home in on” instead of “hone in on…” and on and on. (This second example only bothered me because the phrase was used in five paragraphs in a row. Either form is banal.)
February 28, 2024
Ironically, I found myself having difficulty paying attention to this book because of all the tangents it went on. There are some insightful points here and there, a lot of references to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and a lot of rambles best left unread.
Further reading:
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention— and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari
Further reading:
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention— and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari
June 15, 2009
I really liked this book, and thank you to my sister Amy for recommending it. It made me think about how our lives are defined by what we pay attention to. Also, I appreciated the chapter on ADHD, since I see that a lot at work. A lot of the science in this book is also mentioned in Malcom Gladwell's Blink and Jonah Lehrer's How We Decide, but each of the books offers a different perspective.
I think decision making and focusing our attention are the challenges of our age. We have so much to choose from, to read, to look at, to listen to, and it's so hard to focus! Unlike our ancestors, we don't have the struggle for survival that riveted so much of their attention. We have so much information and so many possibilities it becomes overwhelming. John Milton was able to retire to a country house for a year and read every book that was known to exist at the time. Who could do that today? That's why I think these books on focus and decision making are so popular.
I think decision making and focusing our attention are the challenges of our age. We have so much to choose from, to read, to look at, to listen to, and it's so hard to focus! Unlike our ancestors, we don't have the struggle for survival that riveted so much of their attention. We have so much information and so many possibilities it becomes overwhelming. John Milton was able to retire to a country house for a year and read every book that was known to exist at the time. Who could do that today? That's why I think these books on focus and decision making are so popular.
June 25, 2020
Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life by Winifred Gallagher opens up with William James’s famous quote, “My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind”. This is one of the most powerful lines that I have come across. It’s so simple yet so profound to execute.
It is not really a self-help book as many might expect. The book talks about what is attention and how it can be strengthened by two main practices, mindfulness and meditation.
What is an attention?
Gallagher then goes on to take the definition of “attention” bit-by-bit. She says, attention is the process of selecting few things while suppressing the other. Things that we focus on become part of our world and the things that we ignore, might not even exist for us.
How we gonna spend our attention, like how we decide to spend our money, will help to shape our world, our experience and our work.
It is through the exploration of attention, one can better understand rapport with oneself, the relationships with our immediate family members & professional life and bonding within communities as well.
What is flow?
Rapt attention refers to a state of mind that is completely “in flow” with the work one is doing. There is no distraction, mind is totally in-sync, absorbed and engrossed. When one reaches this state, the work is performed automatically and without effort. For a person who is in this process, seems to be witnessing his work as an outsider.
This form of flow gives deepest pleasure and a sense of involvement with his art. Anyone can be in-sync with is work, be it an academician involved in his research, carpenter crafting his art, sculptor giving shape to his vision, chef cooking his favourite cuisine or an athlete running on track.
Some people can slip into “the flow” easily while still others need to cultivate this skill. It is not difficult to acquire, all it requires is mindfully focussing on things that we are doing in the present moment. With consistency, it becomes a habit. Once we reach in this state, we are happier and more productive.
Scientific overview of attention
Attention holds very strong position in whatever we do in our daily life. For instance, our relationships, productivity at work, decision making, creativity, focus, aging, motivation, success and health everything depends on what we put our attention.
Gallagher has given scientific overview of attention and how it works. Mainly attention has two modes of working.
I) Bottom-up attention - Our brains are hard wired to notice things. That is, brightly coloured bird, bad smell, siren, things that threaten our survival. This is the default setting of our brain. And it does require much effort as it is done naturally.
II) Top-down attention – This works completely opposite to the first one. Not the obvious thing to focus on but what you want to focus on. We consciously make decision in focusing and de-focusing our attention. This mode requires energy for operation.
These are the two processes as to how information enters our brain and hence into our span of attention.
Positive frame of mind
Next, the author talks about the positive frame of mind. When we take information, with a positive approach, our attention widens. We notice more. We identify ourselves with a “bigger picture” and so suffer less.
On the other hand, when we feel low, we tend to block ourselves and our periphery is limited with our problems. Therefore, feelings impact attention. Afterall, attention is linked to our biochemistry.
Gallagher suggests that we can look beyond our hardwired responses and optimize our use of attention by building “focussing regimen” daily. She substantiates her claim with the help of her study on Tibetan monks.
By practising rapt attention consistently for some time, one can experience striking experience in their daily experience. Tibetan monks practise mindfulness meditation every day, right from their daily chores till drinking a cup of tea, they do it with full focus. In fact, breathing in and out moment-by-moment is performed under the influence of “rapt attention”.
Subjects who completed 8 weeks of mindfulness-based mediation programs, showed an increased activity in their left prefrontal regions. The area is involved in establishing positive feelings and goal-oriented orientation.
Our brain keeps on changing and new neurons keep on developing. By attending to attention, we can alter the neural network in direction that may give positive and progressive outlook in life.
Thus, a depression too can be cured, provided the person has a will to improve his quality of life.
Takeaway
Most of the times, we feel our weekends go wasted, and by the end of the day we are full of guilt by not doing any of the things that we had listed in our weekend to do list. Gallagher intervenes and suggests that we need to take our weekends and holidays “seriously” like we take our weekdays. Of course, it requires similar efforts but the results are worth rewarding.
It will feel that even our weekends are productive and it’ll give a sense of achievement.
Living a focussed life doesn’t mean, staying happy all the times, rather treat mind like a personal space, as if, it’s our plane’s cockpit, where we are as careful as possible about who and what to introduce and allow to grow there. After all, quoting Gallagher here, “life is the creation of what you focus on”.
Via: Rapt Attention and the Focused Life by Winifred Gallagher
It is not really a self-help book as many might expect. The book talks about what is attention and how it can be strengthened by two main practices, mindfulness and meditation.
What is an attention?
Gallagher then goes on to take the definition of “attention” bit-by-bit. She says, attention is the process of selecting few things while suppressing the other. Things that we focus on become part of our world and the things that we ignore, might not even exist for us.
How we gonna spend our attention, like how we decide to spend our money, will help to shape our world, our experience and our work.
It is through the exploration of attention, one can better understand rapport with oneself, the relationships with our immediate family members & professional life and bonding within communities as well.
What is flow?
Rapt attention refers to a state of mind that is completely “in flow” with the work one is doing. There is no distraction, mind is totally in-sync, absorbed and engrossed. When one reaches this state, the work is performed automatically and without effort. For a person who is in this process, seems to be witnessing his work as an outsider.
This form of flow gives deepest pleasure and a sense of involvement with his art. Anyone can be in-sync with is work, be it an academician involved in his research, carpenter crafting his art, sculptor giving shape to his vision, chef cooking his favourite cuisine or an athlete running on track.
Some people can slip into “the flow” easily while still others need to cultivate this skill. It is not difficult to acquire, all it requires is mindfully focussing on things that we are doing in the present moment. With consistency, it becomes a habit. Once we reach in this state, we are happier and more productive.
Scientific overview of attention
Attention holds very strong position in whatever we do in our daily life. For instance, our relationships, productivity at work, decision making, creativity, focus, aging, motivation, success and health everything depends on what we put our attention.
Gallagher has given scientific overview of attention and how it works. Mainly attention has two modes of working.
I) Bottom-up attention - Our brains are hard wired to notice things. That is, brightly coloured bird, bad smell, siren, things that threaten our survival. This is the default setting of our brain. And it does require much effort as it is done naturally.
II) Top-down attention – This works completely opposite to the first one. Not the obvious thing to focus on but what you want to focus on. We consciously make decision in focusing and de-focusing our attention. This mode requires energy for operation.
These are the two processes as to how information enters our brain and hence into our span of attention.
Positive frame of mind
Next, the author talks about the positive frame of mind. When we take information, with a positive approach, our attention widens. We notice more. We identify ourselves with a “bigger picture” and so suffer less.
On the other hand, when we feel low, we tend to block ourselves and our periphery is limited with our problems. Therefore, feelings impact attention. Afterall, attention is linked to our biochemistry.
Gallagher suggests that we can look beyond our hardwired responses and optimize our use of attention by building “focussing regimen” daily. She substantiates her claim with the help of her study on Tibetan monks.
By practising rapt attention consistently for some time, one can experience striking experience in their daily experience. Tibetan monks practise mindfulness meditation every day, right from their daily chores till drinking a cup of tea, they do it with full focus. In fact, breathing in and out moment-by-moment is performed under the influence of “rapt attention”.
Subjects who completed 8 weeks of mindfulness-based mediation programs, showed an increased activity in their left prefrontal regions. The area is involved in establishing positive feelings and goal-oriented orientation.
Our brain keeps on changing and new neurons keep on developing. By attending to attention, we can alter the neural network in direction that may give positive and progressive outlook in life.
Thus, a depression too can be cured, provided the person has a will to improve his quality of life.
Takeaway
Most of the times, we feel our weekends go wasted, and by the end of the day we are full of guilt by not doing any of the things that we had listed in our weekend to do list. Gallagher intervenes and suggests that we need to take our weekends and holidays “seriously” like we take our weekdays. Of course, it requires similar efforts but the results are worth rewarding.
It will feel that even our weekends are productive and it’ll give a sense of achievement.
Living a focussed life doesn’t mean, staying happy all the times, rather treat mind like a personal space, as if, it’s our plane’s cockpit, where we are as careful as possible about who and what to introduce and allow to grow there. After all, quoting Gallagher here, “life is the creation of what you focus on”.
Via: Rapt Attention and the Focused Life by Winifred Gallagher
November 28, 2017
Strongly influenced by the classic Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, this book, published two decades later, broadens the scope from skilled activities to attention in general. It was motivated by Gallagher's experience of becoming more mindful during a serious illness. Numerous studies and examples back up her arguments that attention contributes to happiness. It is a good companion to Flow.
I have always admired her introductory comment that “you might encounter an intuition lurking in the back of your mind, as it was in mine: if you could just stay focused on the right things, your life would stop feeling like a reaction to stuff that happens to you and become something that you create: not a series of accidents, but a work of art.” I was hoping for more such poetry, but this turned out mostly to be about mundane forms of focus and not so much about exquisite captivation (despite the suggestion of the title Rapt).
I have always admired her introductory comment that “you might encounter an intuition lurking in the back of your mind, as it was in mine: if you could just stay focused on the right things, your life would stop feeling like a reaction to stuff that happens to you and become something that you create: not a series of accidents, but a work of art.” I was hoping for more such poetry, but this turned out mostly to be about mundane forms of focus and not so much about exquisite captivation (despite the suggestion of the title Rapt).
January 19, 2021
You might think that someone who claims to be an expert on focused attention would be capable of writing an engrossing book, but you’d be wrong. The best adjective I can think of to describe Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life by Winifred Gallagher is … eminently forgettable.
The problems are twofold:
1. It’s rather difficult to study internal states of mind. No machine exists that provide concrete measurements of our mental states; thus psychologists have to resort to drawing inferences from self-perceived feelings (an approach that necessarily serves to provide only tentative conclusions). With regards to the study of attention, these conclusions are especially meager and could be summarized in a magazine-length article. To turn the subject into a book length treatment, Gallagher relies on the time-tested technique of utilizing diversions and asides … a number of which travel rather far afield (certainly a different zip code if not an entirely new time zone).
2. Gallagher is enthralled with mindfulness meditation and descends into the realm of what the late, great James ‘The Amazing’ Randy appropriately calls ‘woo-woo’. Meditation is a pre-scientific notion rooted in Buddhist thought and theory. Its adherents claim it provides a multitude of miraculous benefits (including hair growth for those who are bald … seriously Google it). Gallagher presents a plethora of these claims as if they were fact without bothering to examine them critically. The problem is that there are very few well controlled studies supporting the benefits of meditation (let alone studies that try to tease out the most likely cause … the placebo effect).
Scientists who have examined the literature have found that the only firm conclusion that can be drawn regarding meditation's benefit is that it can serve as a form of relaxation. That’s not a bad thing, relaxation can make us more calm as well as reduce stress and anxiety … but so can reading a book, or engaging in a hobby, or drinking a beer, or drinking a beer while engaging in a hobby. Personally, I’d much rather pursue these latter activities than sit quietly with my attention raptly focused on the melodious tones of my nose whistle … but that’s just me.
If nothing else, the book is a good example of confirmation bias, where an individual who very much wants something to be true, latches onto every bit of confirming evidence and immediately becomes convinced that it is, in fact, true. To quote Richard Feynman “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.” That sentiment seems particularly apt for those who happen to go by the name of Winifred Gallagher.
For those who are interested, here’s a decent summary of what we really know about meditation:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...
The problems are twofold:
1. It’s rather difficult to study internal states of mind. No machine exists that provide concrete measurements of our mental states; thus psychologists have to resort to drawing inferences from self-perceived feelings (an approach that necessarily serves to provide only tentative conclusions). With regards to the study of attention, these conclusions are especially meager and could be summarized in a magazine-length article. To turn the subject into a book length treatment, Gallagher relies on the time-tested technique of utilizing diversions and asides … a number of which travel rather far afield (certainly a different zip code if not an entirely new time zone).
2. Gallagher is enthralled with mindfulness meditation and descends into the realm of what the late, great James ‘The Amazing’ Randy appropriately calls ‘woo-woo’. Meditation is a pre-scientific notion rooted in Buddhist thought and theory. Its adherents claim it provides a multitude of miraculous benefits (including hair growth for those who are bald … seriously Google it). Gallagher presents a plethora of these claims as if they were fact without bothering to examine them critically. The problem is that there are very few well controlled studies supporting the benefits of meditation (let alone studies that try to tease out the most likely cause … the placebo effect).
Scientists who have examined the literature have found that the only firm conclusion that can be drawn regarding meditation's benefit is that it can serve as a form of relaxation. That’s not a bad thing, relaxation can make us more calm as well as reduce stress and anxiety … but so can reading a book, or engaging in a hobby, or drinking a beer, or drinking a beer while engaging in a hobby. Personally, I’d much rather pursue these latter activities than sit quietly with my attention raptly focused on the melodious tones of my nose whistle … but that’s just me.
If nothing else, the book is a good example of confirmation bias, where an individual who very much wants something to be true, latches onto every bit of confirming evidence and immediately becomes convinced that it is, in fact, true. To quote Richard Feynman “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.” That sentiment seems particularly apt for those who happen to go by the name of Winifred Gallagher.
For those who are interested, here’s a decent summary of what we really know about meditation:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...
March 10, 2012
*Paying attention to your attention*
Completely rapt while reading this book at the gym, I was startled when the gym staff member alerted me that the gym was about to close. Apparently, I missed the announcement. Now, if that's not a convincing testimony for the captivating factor of this book, I'm not sure what is.
The basic premise of _Rapt_ is: "Your life--who you are, what you think, feel and do, what you love--is the sum of what you focus on." It not what happens to happens to you that matters, but what you selectively attend to and focus on that ultimately determines your happiness. As Winifred notes: "Paying rapt attention, whether to a trout stream or a novel, a do-it-yourself project or a prayer, increases your capacity for concentration, expands your inner boundaries, and lifts your spirits, but more important, it simply makes you feel that life is worth living."
_Rapt_ presents a fascinating look at how what we pay attention to has profound effects on all aspects of our life--from relationships and work to our health and our hobbies. Winifred does an impressive job of weaving together numerous research findings, quotes from personal interviews, and her own acquired wisdom to bring much needed attention to the subject of attention. (Meta-attention!) Appropriately, the book is completely captivating from page one, and each successive page continues to convey the powerful benefits of (really, really) paying attention to your life.
Since reading this book, I have become even more focused and engaged in whatever I am doing in the moment. And, that alone is well worth the time it took to indulge in _Rapt_. This is definitely one of those books that changes the way you look at your life.
Here's to the power of paying attention to your attention!
Completely rapt while reading this book at the gym, I was startled when the gym staff member alerted me that the gym was about to close. Apparently, I missed the announcement. Now, if that's not a convincing testimony for the captivating factor of this book, I'm not sure what is.
The basic premise of _Rapt_ is: "Your life--who you are, what you think, feel and do, what you love--is the sum of what you focus on." It not what happens to happens to you that matters, but what you selectively attend to and focus on that ultimately determines your happiness. As Winifred notes: "Paying rapt attention, whether to a trout stream or a novel, a do-it-yourself project or a prayer, increases your capacity for concentration, expands your inner boundaries, and lifts your spirits, but more important, it simply makes you feel that life is worth living."
_Rapt_ presents a fascinating look at how what we pay attention to has profound effects on all aspects of our life--from relationships and work to our health and our hobbies. Winifred does an impressive job of weaving together numerous research findings, quotes from personal interviews, and her own acquired wisdom to bring much needed attention to the subject of attention. (Meta-attention!) Appropriately, the book is completely captivating from page one, and each successive page continues to convey the powerful benefits of (really, really) paying attention to your life.
Since reading this book, I have become even more focused and engaged in whatever I am doing in the moment. And, that alone is well worth the time it took to indulge in _Rapt_. This is definitely one of those books that changes the way you look at your life.
Here's to the power of paying attention to your attention!
abandoned
January 28, 2021DNF. I was already feeling a little worried by a faintly smug or dismissive tone I felt Gallagher adopted towards those experiencing depression, mental illness, etc, and worried the book was veering more towards cheery self-help than science. Then I came across this bit: "...some eclectic research suggests that rather than being helpful, focusing top-down attention on a psychic wound can make you feel worse. Debriefing-style counseling after a trauma often aggravates the victim's stress-related symptoms, for example, and 4 in 10 bereaved people do better without grief therapy." (emphasis mine). I stared at this sentence, thinking, wait, if 4 in 10 did better without, doesn't that mean 6 in 10 did better with? Which supports the opposite of the author's apparent argument? I recognized that I could be misinterpreting the author's phrasing, so I popped over to the "Notes" section to find out more. And discovered that the "Notes" contained no notes, only citations, and that many of the citations were for news articles with dramatized headlines rather than source research. At that point I felt like my trust in the author and the research simply wasn't there, and decided not to invest further time.
September 30, 2017
A surprisingly good book. A bit too Malcolm Gladwell for my liking. A bit too much pseudo-neuroscience. But parking those two issues, this is a fine book. There are some emotional and interesting points made in this book.
I read it to - perhaps - offer a vlog to my PhD students on focus and motivation. It does offer some powerful ideas for that goal. But it is an inspirational book about how to - with consciousness - live a life rather than going through the motions of life. All of us - too often - attempt to reach the expectations of mummy or daddy or preacher or boss. How many of us have the courage to understand ourselves and focus on our goals? At its best, this books helps us find that path.
Recommended.
I read it to - perhaps - offer a vlog to my PhD students on focus and motivation. It does offer some powerful ideas for that goal. But it is an inspirational book about how to - with consciousness - live a life rather than going through the motions of life. All of us - too often - attempt to reach the expectations of mummy or daddy or preacher or boss. How many of us have the courage to understand ourselves and focus on our goals? At its best, this books helps us find that path.
Recommended.
October 3, 2009
Accessible manifesto on living with intention and optimism. Draws on history, literature, science, tech, modern culture. Ironically, multiplicity of sources creates a disjointed effect. But the main message is clear and inspiring.
December 12, 2012
What Daniel said.
I wanted specific strategies and suggestions for increasing the amount of time I spend in deep work (getting off Goodreads would probably be a good start). Instead I got a book of fluff and padding.
1.5 stars.
I wanted specific strategies and suggestions for increasing the amount of time I spend in deep work (getting off Goodreads would probably be a good start). Instead I got a book of fluff and padding.
1.5 stars.
July 5, 2017
It's kind of ironic that I enjoyed this book tremendously, thought it was highly interesting, but yet I kept putting it down and it took me so many months to finally finish this book. I guess I was interested while I was reading it, but was slow to pick it back up each time I put it down. Too bad it wasn't available as an audiobook at my library.
I liked how even though the book was all about attention and focus, it still covered a lot of ground and was successful at bringing everything back to the topic of attention. What you focus on, what interests you will shape your life. Dictate the choices you make. Your unconscious predilections will shape the kind of person you are. Do you naturally focus on the next thing and not dwell on past injuries and wrongs? Or are you more prone to nursing old injuries? Are you aware of this bias and are you working on changing it? Do you pay attention to the food you eat? Do you dwell on your health or do you practice meditation to help lift you out of the mental trap of pain? By knowingly cultivating many interests, you can be a happier, healthier individual. Did you know that what you pay attention to can be influenced by culture? In the United States, we are more prone to notice individuals, the flashier and more colorful, the better. But the rest of the world is more prone to notice the entire context, how everyone gets along together, things that would affect the whole.
I really hadn't known before just how little is really understood about attention deficit diseases. Or how the whole medical field of "attention" is slowly growing and incorporating more and more research. Or how very limited the human brain is in what it can pay attention to and what sticks in memory and what doesn't. Because after all, if you're not interested and not paying attention, there's no way to incorporate the information in your short term or long term memory, no chance to learn it, and you can't use it later when you need it. Mentally speaking, what you choose to pay attention to is what you choose to feed and grow.
The big take-aways I got from this book is that I need to practice meditation, or at least a couple of minutes of mindful breathing exercises every day. I need to do/learn something tough, but enjoyable, in order to grow mentally. So yeah, I'll be starting my ukulele lessons again and learning to read sheet music. And lastly, I need to eat slower and pay attention to my food.
I liked how even though the book was all about attention and focus, it still covered a lot of ground and was successful at bringing everything back to the topic of attention. What you focus on, what interests you will shape your life. Dictate the choices you make. Your unconscious predilections will shape the kind of person you are. Do you naturally focus on the next thing and not dwell on past injuries and wrongs? Or are you more prone to nursing old injuries? Are you aware of this bias and are you working on changing it? Do you pay attention to the food you eat? Do you dwell on your health or do you practice meditation to help lift you out of the mental trap of pain? By knowingly cultivating many interests, you can be a happier, healthier individual. Did you know that what you pay attention to can be influenced by culture? In the United States, we are more prone to notice individuals, the flashier and more colorful, the better. But the rest of the world is more prone to notice the entire context, how everyone gets along together, things that would affect the whole.
I really hadn't known before just how little is really understood about attention deficit diseases. Or how the whole medical field of "attention" is slowly growing and incorporating more and more research. Or how very limited the human brain is in what it can pay attention to and what sticks in memory and what doesn't. Because after all, if you're not interested and not paying attention, there's no way to incorporate the information in your short term or long term memory, no chance to learn it, and you can't use it later when you need it. Mentally speaking, what you choose to pay attention to is what you choose to feed and grow.
The big take-aways I got from this book is that I need to practice meditation, or at least a couple of minutes of mindful breathing exercises every day. I need to do/learn something tough, but enjoyable, in order to grow mentally. So yeah, I'll be starting my ukulele lessons again and learning to read sheet music. And lastly, I need to eat slower and pay attention to my food.
September 7, 2018
The author had my attention (pun, unfortunately, intended) from the very beginning. I believe what she believes, in that our ability to control our attention is the “sine qua non” of a good life.
The book then goes on to provide comprehensive arguments on why and how this is so, which at times felt almost overwhelming. Yes, it’s important! The question is...how to cultivate the level of self-control needed to experience the benefits? While the book didn’t give me as many answers as I might like, the excellent research and notes offers many opportunities to explore further.
The book then goes on to provide comprehensive arguments on why and how this is so, which at times felt almost overwhelming. Yes, it’s important! The question is...how to cultivate the level of self-control needed to experience the benefits? While the book didn’t give me as many answers as I might like, the excellent research and notes offers many opportunities to explore further.
December 23, 2017
A lot of insight on how we experience life on what we focus on. This book calmed me somehow. I guess because it shows that you can get out of that over-whelmed state and use your mind to have a much more productive and satisfied day.
April 27, 2020
Makes for compelling arguments about having a focussed life. Covers lot of ground apart from focussing on a target, but is holistic in its perspective. Might not be much research oriented, cases studies are not exhaustive.
May 21, 2020
“If you could stay focused on the right things, your life would stop feeling like a reaction to stuff that happens to you and become something you create: not a series of accidents but a work of art ... Paying rapt attention whether to a trout stream or a novel , a do it yourself project or a prayer, increases your capacity for concentration, expands your inner boundaries and lifts your spirits, but more important simply makes you feel that life is worth living.”
The above quotes encompass the thesis of this book. It was what hooked me when I read the sample downloaded on my Kindle. I felt excited by how much this idea resonated with me and was eager to find out exactly how I could do this. How do I stay focused on the right things? What can I do to generate more opportunities for ‘rapt’ attention in my life? But this book is not a ‘how to’ guide. Instead it is a well researched and well written investigation into and defense of the thesis comprised in the quotes above. While there are numerous hints at things one might do to enhance capacity for attention and focus (start a regular meditation practice is a recurring one), the reader is left to figure this out on their own. I guess I was a bit disappointed by this. I thoroughly agreed with the thesis from the moment I read it. I was looking for advice rather than a convincing argument.
The above quotes encompass the thesis of this book. It was what hooked me when I read the sample downloaded on my Kindle. I felt excited by how much this idea resonated with me and was eager to find out exactly how I could do this. How do I stay focused on the right things? What can I do to generate more opportunities for ‘rapt’ attention in my life? But this book is not a ‘how to’ guide. Instead it is a well researched and well written investigation into and defense of the thesis comprised in the quotes above. While there are numerous hints at things one might do to enhance capacity for attention and focus (start a regular meditation practice is a recurring one), the reader is left to figure this out on their own. I guess I was a bit disappointed by this. I thoroughly agreed with the thesis from the moment I read it. I was looking for advice rather than a convincing argument.
May 10, 2024
Vanilla pop-psych but nevertheless has its useful insights.
March 3, 2024
your life--who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love--is the sum of what you focus on.
What a banger of a statement.
This book is about attention: the importance of paying attention at all, choosing what you pay attention to, benefits when done well, what goes wrong when done poorly. Cal Newport read it, and has referenced it in a few podcast episodes, so I picked it up. Overall, I'm glad that I did.
The introduction is an absolute 5-star essay. Must-read for everyone.
The author gets cancer. But instead of doing what (I would assume) most people do, which is to focus on the disease, the treatment, the plan, what might go right or wrong, etc., she decides to focus on literally anything else, and her life turns fantastic. She then becomes somewhat obsessed with "what you focus on matters", and the result is this book.
One through line of the book which I love is that YOU are responsible for what you pay attention to.
As the poet W.H. Auden put it, "Choice of Attention--to pay attention to this and ignore that--is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.
In today's age people blame the algorithm, big tech, whatever, for their distraction. As if their own agency were unable to withstand the techno optimizing of supernerds, forcing them to give in.
Gallagher consistently and persistently dose not excuse your inability to focus your attention where you want. Even discussions on mental health and ADHD do not leave you without agency, which is refreshing.
Here's another great quote on how even your temperament is adaptable over time:
The discovery that a focusing regimen can have profound impacts not only on a person's ability to concentrate but also on his or her basic emotional disposition is particularly significant, because temperament has traditionally been regarded as highly stable and resistant to change. In Davidson's view, however, the genes you inherit "set very coarse boundaries" for your identity and behavior, but they don't /determine/ it. What really counts, he says, is your epigenetics, or the way in which your genes are expressed in the real world; this function can be strongly modified by your experience, which in turn greatly depends on how you direct your attention. As Davidson says, "/That's/ the process that ultimately determines who you are and what you do."
And yet another on your agency to control your life through focus:
The idea of cultivating willpower -- the capacity to choose and follow a course of action despite obstacles -- would not have surprised Epictetus, Augustine, Nietzche, and other philosophers who have embraced what William James called "the art of replacing one habit for another." Through most of history, gluttony, concupiscence, drunkenness, and sloth were regarded as vices rather than sicknesses, and replacing them with temperance, chastity, sobriety, and enterprise required an act of the will. The sages of old would be amazed to hear modern Americans blame their expanding middles on the genes or habits they inherited from their parents, rather than on their own lack of "self-control" -- another anachronistic term. In a culture that increasingly can't just say no, overweight individuals may resort to stomach-pumping surgery, and groups lobby for statues to make trans fats illegal and tax junk foods.
The structure of the book worked for me. It's broken up into 14 chapters, each which takes a dive into different angles of how to think about attention. Topics like attention in relationships, at work, how much of your ability to focus might be nature vs nurture, focusing internally vs. externally.
Some of the specific chatpers were excellent. Chapter 13, on Health, and 14, on Meaning, were two such ones.
Chapter 9 on Creativity was excellent.
In a fortuitous circular dynamic, whenever you engage in a creative activity, you boost your level of positive emotion, which in turn literally widens your attentional range, giving you more material to work with.
And had this gem:
...Langer says, "Imagine that you've had the same spouse for many years. If you look for a way in which he's different today, you'll find something. That makes him more interesting and, probably, more likable."
Chapter 13 on Health discussed mindfulness in the context of multiple treatments, and I found it fascinating. This was my favorite line:
Using both approaches is much more effective than either one used alone, he says, because the Western therapy addresses the anxious mind's content -- maladaptive thoughts -- and Eastern practice its "processing" -- a churning state of fretful awareness that's rigid, narrow, and focused on worry: "You have to address both content and process, and Western science doesn't have enough nonpharmacological interventions for changing states of mind."
Others were less good. The book is essentially a survey of psychological research, and a failure of such books -- in my personal view -- is that they can end up just bouncing around citing "this finding, that finding, this other finding", trying their best to connecting the findings by an overall theme, but not really creating a throughline, and thus leaving the reader without any specific "so what?" A few of the less good chapters felt meandering in this way to me.
Another weakness of surveys like this is that they can take fantastically nuanced things and cover them in a page or a paragraph. Chapter 7, for example, felt like this to me. It covered Flow a lot...but not deliberate practice, which feels like an obvious miss.
For example, here's a quote from Chapter 7, which focuses on productivity:
Unless you can concentrate on what you want to do and suppress distractions, it's hard to accomplish anything, period.
Cal Newport has an entire book on this, and you could argue multiple books. Deep Work, A World Without Email, So Good They Can't Ignore You, Slow Productivity all focus on this from different angles. It's an extremely rich topic. And the chapter barely touches upon it.
Still, it was enjoyable. The Introduction and last 2 chapters make the read worthwhile, and are a call to live more intentionally and be more present.
A note on style. The authors style is academic / learned. She's as apt to quote classics as psychology researchers:
As Hobbs puts it, the secret of fulfillment is "to choose trouble for oneself in the direction of what one would like to become."
I found these little academic / nerdy asides entertaining and additive to the book.
April 23, 2021
I thought this book would provide tips on the 'HOW' (to focus on the right thing), but mostly it is just trying to convince readers that 'focusing on the right/positive things will improve your well-being' (isn't that obvious...?) So in the end I don't feel that I've learnt much new...
Also the writing lacks structure - in the middle of a chapter you would forget what this chapter is about, and between chapters there're quite some repeating messages which confuse you even more.
For the soul and bones of this book I'd give it a two star, but fortunately there're a few nice quotes across this book that kept me going till the end:
- If you could just stay focused on the right things, your life would stop feeling like a reaction to stuff that happens to you and become something that you create: not a series of accidents, but a work of art.
- The attentional habit of sizing up a situation in a way that prepares you to take charge of it is a cornerstone of Western individualism.
- Attentiveness without an object is prayer in its supreme form.
- We are always getting ready to live, but never living. As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
- I don't sing because I'm happy. I'm happy because I sing.
- There are two ways to live your life. one is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Also the writing lacks structure - in the middle of a chapter you would forget what this chapter is about, and between chapters there're quite some repeating messages which confuse you even more.
For the soul and bones of this book I'd give it a two star, but fortunately there're a few nice quotes across this book that kept me going till the end:
- If you could just stay focused on the right things, your life would stop feeling like a reaction to stuff that happens to you and become something that you create: not a series of accidents, but a work of art.
- The attentional habit of sizing up a situation in a way that prepares you to take charge of it is a cornerstone of Western individualism.
- Attentiveness without an object is prayer in its supreme form.
- We are always getting ready to live, but never living. As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
- I don't sing because I'm happy. I'm happy because I sing.
- There are two ways to live your life. one is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
May 30, 2010
A good reminder to pay attention to the things that make you happy. I particularly liked the descriptions of bottom-up and top-down attention. It has quite a bit of relatively new research in it, although having recently read the brain that changes itself and blink, there wasn't a great deal new for me. However I found it valuable to make me aware of my habitual mode of focussing and practical ways to control my attention. I might even try meditating. I'm not sure I agree that the state of rapt attention is what one should strive for continually, nor that experiential focussing particualrly important. I'd much rather look back on a happy memory than enjoy each moment as it comes. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone who feels their life lacks lustre in any way.
December 31, 2020
I love the book's opening concept that your life is a culmination of what you focus your attention on. But if that is the case, the rest of this book should not be where I focus my attention.
There are long winding explanations of birds in Central Park to explain concepts which are difficult to concentrate on. Then there are real nuggets of wisdom that aren't cited or expanded on at all.
I finally decided to shelve the book when I reached chapter 4. The author sweepingly describes all introverts as individuals who go through life unaware of their surroundings as a way of protecting their "sensitivity and shyness". As opposed to their (clearly superior) extroverted conterparts who are "more focused on and engaged with the world". I wholeheartedly disagree with this analysis and I find it a damaging generalisation. I didn't continue reading from there.
There are long winding explanations of birds in Central Park to explain concepts which are difficult to concentrate on. Then there are real nuggets of wisdom that aren't cited or expanded on at all.
I finally decided to shelve the book when I reached chapter 4. The author sweepingly describes all introverts as individuals who go through life unaware of their surroundings as a way of protecting their "sensitivity and shyness". As opposed to their (clearly superior) extroverted conterparts who are "more focused on and engaged with the world". I wholeheartedly disagree with this analysis and I find it a damaging generalisation. I didn't continue reading from there.
June 14, 2020
I enjoyed this book. It's a free ranging essay of a book, and informal in its references to research, but I found it's arguments worth considering. In short, the author argues our happiness and effectiveness in life largely depends on focusing our attention. In a world where we are constantly distracted by an increasing number of devices and pleas for our attention, learning to direct our attention is essential. There is not a great deal of advice on how to attain a more attentive state, just general advice like meditate, focus your attention on positive memories, and cultivate your relationships. If you are looking for a deeper or more practical model for understanding the mind, perhaps you won't find this worth your time. I did. Now, if I can only remember to implement it in my life.
May 2, 2011
For a book all about attention, I was hoping this one would at least keep mine. The content was far too straight-forward, if not obvious – and unfortunately had very few concrete takeaways for me. The only way this assisted my attention was that I could listen to the audiobook, look at updates on Flipboard, and do the dishes. Hooray for hyperthreading… If you want more than this book offers, Yahoo the benefits of savoring, meditation, focus, looking at the same situation in a different light, devoting time to something you like doing or want to get better at, etc. I recommend Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.
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