✳flâneur — a map of the web's best reading

Do One Thing at a Time

jdahl.substack.com · 651 words · saved by 1 readers

As I groggily opened Twitter this morning, the beginning of a thread stared me in the face: "I'm addicted to focus," it began, above some diagram of a brain scan. I thankfully came to my senses and force-quit the app most responsible for my scattered mind. But that phrase lingered in my head. It's pithy, but somehow probably right: if we are not addicted to focus then we must at least have an unsatiated desire for it. Our language about presence—focus, flow states, embodiment, on and on—all seems to point to something radically simple: doing one thing at a time. Unfortunately, I spend much of my time actively trying to do multiple things at once, let alone intentionally settling into a single-minded focus. Our contexts, culture, and technology tend to encourage or demand a buzzing, high-variance approach to attention.[1] I listened to an interview with Boyd Varty earlier this year. He is a lion tracker, business coach, healer, and writer, among other things. But I think he's best descr

Do One Thing at a Time Jackson Dahl Aug 14, 2024 12 2 2 Share Timothy Jones The more present I am, the more fulfilled I tend to be. Happiness is easy, they say: be here now. So why is it so hard to stay here? As I groggily opened Twitter this morning, the beginning of a thread stared me in the face: "I'm addicted to focus," it began, above some diagram of a brain scan. I thankfully came to my senses and force-quit the app most responsible for my scattered mind. But that phrase lingered in my head. It's pithy, but somehow probably right: if we are not addicted to focus then we must at least hav

Explore this link on the map →

related reading