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10_4tina 's review for:
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
This felt necessary when I passed it on display at the library...and I have low impulse control so I picked it up. lol... In seriousness though, I don't know that I had enough attention span to read this. It's theoretical, memoir-heavy, and filled with lots of research anecdotes. It's all good and true and we're too addicted to multi-tasking and dopamine and all the things, but I would have preferred a book with more tangible action steps or personal growth stories. There was lots of interesting pieces, but it never felt cohesive...but maybe that's because we're not actually happier in a focused state of flow so the author prevented us from hitting that while reading...
Interesting things I flagged:
Chapter 5:
Self-interrupting was a new term to me, but certainly not a new concept. I'm always self-interrupting to fill time, because I have a habit of checking my phone, or attempting to resolve my train tracks brain or trying to minimize other distractions. Self-interrupting is a bit of a release valve to cope with stress - switching from focused attention to rote attention.
Interruptions caused people to do a task faster than when not interrupted. External interruptions seemed to cause people to go quicker and communicate more succinctly, perhaps to compensate for interruptions they anticipate (proactively working faster when you have to leave early) - tasks with frequent interruptions may also be easier to remember and thus easier to resume in between interruptions. Stress is the cost of the efficiency of working with interruptions.
Women are more focused and resilient to interruptions when compared with men.
Chapter 13:
Ask yourself: While I read, say a news story, have I already learned the gist of the story? Am I still learning something new and interesting? If I keep at it, will I just experience diminishing marginal returns? If so, then I stop...This prevents one from getting too deep into the sunk cost attention trap where it's psychologically hard to pull out - [I read this and thought, "huh...should I stop reading this book now?" But actually, I think I am training my attention by continuing to choose active engagement when I'm naturally losing interest rather than just trying to get the quick hit. I think the author advocates for this theoretically in other parts of the book, but I can appreciate her point here too]
Create friction to make it harder to be distracted - leave a phone in another room, in a drawer that is locked. Expectations of easily getting to a distraction are being revised as you increase this friction.
Interesting things I flagged:
Chapter 5:
Self-interrupting was a new term to me, but certainly not a new concept. I'm always self-interrupting to fill time, because I have a habit of checking my phone, or attempting to resolve my train tracks brain or trying to minimize other distractions. Self-interrupting is a bit of a release valve to cope with stress - switching from focused attention to rote attention.
Interruptions caused people to do a task faster than when not interrupted. External interruptions seemed to cause people to go quicker and communicate more succinctly, perhaps to compensate for interruptions they anticipate (proactively working faster when you have to leave early) - tasks with frequent interruptions may also be easier to remember and thus easier to resume in between interruptions. Stress is the cost of the efficiency of working with interruptions.
Women are more focused and resilient to interruptions when compared with men.
Chapter 13:
Ask yourself: While I read, say a news story, have I already learned the gist of the story? Am I still learning something new and interesting? If I keep at it, will I just experience diminishing marginal returns? If so, then I stop...This prevents one from getting too deep into the sunk cost attention trap where it's psychologically hard to pull out - [I read this and thought, "huh...should I stop reading this book now?" But actually, I think I am training my attention by continuing to choose active engagement when I'm naturally losing interest rather than just trying to get the quick hit. I think the author advocates for this theoretically in other parts of the book, but I can appreciate her point here too]
Create friction to make it harder to be distracted - leave a phone in another room, in a drawer that is locked. Expectations of easily getting to a distraction are being revised as you increase this friction.