The Every Brain

I haven’t written a blog in a while because I only write when I feel I have something to say or to share with my audience. Lately, I have been preoccupied with current affairs the world over. On my phone, I get notifications from my social media and the New York Times. All those notices along with texts and missed calls are a lot. We are a multitasking society. We check email while eating breakfast. We take a phone call while on the treadmill. We play games while we’re in a Zoom meeting (not me, I swear). So how do we get back to focusing? Or more, how do I get back to focusing? When I studied photography at Pratt the professor constantly reminded us to make sure our lens was in focus. We were learning old school with single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras and developing film in a dark room. There is another meaning to focus which is the verb— focusing, focused, etc. As a time management expert, I have learned that it can take up to 15 minutes to go from one task to another. This means that stopping your writing, to answer a call amounts to 15 minutes once the call is done to get back into writing. On an old school SLR camera, you need to move the lens yourself to get the object in focus (not necessary on an SLR digital camera). Just like this, we need to move our brain to focus on the object. I already blogged about my power hour in the morning. Part of doing this is I put “do not disturb” on my phone and place the phone out of reach and upside down to keep me focused for the hour. I do the same when I set down to read or work on a household project (unless I am playing music) or filing papers (much needed to do now). Also, I noticed other areas where I don’t focus. I watch TV and scroll social media or play games at the same time. Now I put the phone near me on the couch face down and focus on the show. I am currently watching the series Bones on Hulu. When I am in line for something, I listen to my music and maybe even dance to it (this may make others smile or look at me as if I am crazy). In a world where we are bombarded with things that compete for attention, it is important to focus on important tasks, relationships, projects, etc. without interruption. Just as you would tell a young child to stop interrupting, tell your brain this when it interrupts you. It will probably work better on your brain than a young child.

(The title is based on this new pan…The Every Pan)