Constant switching
Our days can involve a lot of switching.
We move from an email to a conversation, from a conversation to a task, from a task to a message and then back again. Sometimes the switches are necessary. Life rarely allows us to give our attention to just one thing from morning until night.
Technology has made switching particularly easy. We can move between conversations, apps, tasks and sources of information in seconds. There is almost always something else within reach, and our attention can drift towards it with very little effort.
I’m curious what happens when our attention is continually asked to change direction.
From one thing to another
We may start reading something and then notice our attention drifting towards an email we need to send. We open the email and notice a message. We reply to the message and then realise we have drifted from what we were doing in the first place. None of these moments necessarily feels significant. The shifts can happen so quickly that we hardly notice them.
Yet each time our attention drifts from one thing to another, there is a small change in where we are giving it. We leave one thing and turn towards something else, sometimes before we have really finished with the first.
The feeling of being busy
Constant switching can create a particular kind of busyness. We may feel as though we have been doing a lot all day, yet find it difficult to remember exactly where our attention has been.
Perhaps we have answered many messages, looked at several things, completed part of a task and had a number of conversations. We have been occupied, but our attention may have spent much of the day drifting from one thing to another rather than settling anywhere for very long.
There is a difference between having many things to do and continually asking our attention to move between them.
Staying with something
Some things ask for time before they become interesting. A book may take a few pages to draw us in. A conversation may deepen when we aren't thinking about what comes next. A difficult problem may need time before we can see a way through it.
When our attention is used to switching, staying with something can feel different. We may notice our attention beginning to drift towards something else, a message, another task or simply the possibility of looking elsewhere before we have reached a natural stopping point.
Perhaps the difficulty isn't always that we cannot concentrate. Perhaps our attention has simply become accustomed to drifting.
Noticing the drift
There can be something useful in noticing the moment when our attention begins to drift.
I'm reading, and my attention has drifted towards my phone.
I'm listening, and my attention is already somewhere else.
I've started something new before finishing what I was doing.
We don't need to prevent every drift. Some will be necessary, some welcome and some simply part of everyday life. Noticing gives us a chance to see where our attention has gone.
Our attention will naturally drift. That is part of being human.
Perhaps caring for our attention means occasionally allowing it to stay with one thing for a little longer, noticing when it drifts and gently deciding whether now is the time to follow it.
I wonder what you might notice the next time you feel your attention drifting towards something else.