1-Page Summary

Daniel Goleman argues that attention is a complex and underappreciated cognitive resource in our
modern society overrun with distractions. Your relationship to this resource—how you use it, strengthen
it, and restore it—affects virtually every aspect of your life. In Focus, Goleman explores how you can
understand, harness, and improve your attention to have a more fulfilling, productive life and become a
healthier, more adaptive, and more engaged member of society and the planet. He asks readers to
consider that what you focus on indicates what you care about—what we, as a collective, care about—
and how this will impact the planet's future.

Goleman is a psychologist and science journalist known for his work on emotional intelligence and
leadership. His work has been widely influential in psychology, education, and business. In addition to
his writing, Goleman is also a speaker and consultant, and he has worked with organizations around the
world to help them improve their leadership and management practices.

In this guide, we'll explore Goleman’s explanations of how attention works and his theories about the
three directions we can deploy our attention—inward, toward other people, and outward toward the
wider world. We’ll also explore how attention impacts our lives and Goleman’s advice on how you can
improve your attention. Throughout, we’ll provide additional context to help you better understand the
book's concepts and compare the author’s insights to those of other psychology and neuroscience
experts.

Many Authors Have Advice on Focus

Many other authors have also explored the topic of focus, providing advice and guides on how to
reclaim your ability to focus and resist distractions. This subgenre includes Deep Work by Cal Newport,
which offers practical techniques for cultivating attention and maximizing productivity, Hyperfocus by
Chris Bailey, which helps you learn to optimize your focus, and Indistractable by Nir Eyal, which helps
you understand and fix your relationship with distraction. Although Goleman addresses some ways to
improve your focus, it is less a how-to guide and more a sweeping and detailed dive into cognition and
how attention affects our lives. Another book that has similarly approached attention is Stolen Focus by
Johann Hari, which diagnoses the modern “crisis of attention.”

Understanding Attention

Goleman describes attention as an elusive and subtle mental asset. He writes that we tend to notice
what abilities attention gives us, like learning and connecting to others, more than we notice attention
itself.

(Shortform note: In describing attention as elusive, Goleman alludes to the ongoing challenge in
psychology and neuroscience to define it. Often it is defined similarly to the word focus—the deliberate
act of concentrating your mind or effort on something. However, attention can encompass more
than an act and can include your brain’s ability to be aware of yourself and your surroundings. To avoid
confusion, in this guide we’ll use the term attention to talk about this broader mental ability
and focus to talk about the purposeful concentration of our attention.)

Goleman highlights three fundamental characteristics of attention that we must understand as we

explore more specific aspects of this mental resource:
 1. Attention is indivisible. You can’t divide your attention between multiple things simultaneously,
as in multitasking. You can only switch your attention back and forth between things.

2. Attention is like a muscle. Its strength is limited but it can be improved.

3. Attention is like a camera. To achieve different goals you can move your attention in different
directions and switch between focused and unfocused states.

(Shortform note: The first two characteristics of attention listed above describe your attention’s
limitations, but, luckily, you can take advantage of the third characteristic to optimize your attention.
You cannot try to divide your attention between multiple things or focus it for too long without
depleting your attention capacity, but some experts suggest that switching your attention between
focused and unfocused states throughout the day helps refresh and restore your attention capacity.)

To better understand attention, Goleman highlights two system-wide processes in the brain and body
—“bottom-up processing” and “top-down processing”—which we use in different ways to pay attention
to ourselves and the world around us. These two processes working together help us sort through
incoming information, make sense of the world, and respond.

Bottom-up processing is an involuntary cognitive process driven by raw sensory data, impulses, and
emotions. Using this process, your brain constantly scans and analyzes information from your senses to
gather data about the world and identify threats and opportunities. It produces subconscious, automatic
attention that operates constantly in the background. With bottom-up processing, your responses to the
world are rapid, instinctual, and habitual.

Top-down processing is a conscious, voluntary, and effortful cognitive process that integrates the
information it receives from the bottom up and helps you deliberate and reason before responding.
Through top-down efforts, you can control your attention, analyze, reason, make choices, learn new
things, and make plans.

(Shortform note: Goleman’s framing of cognition as two distinct but collaborative processes closely
resembles the two “thinking systems” Daniel Kahneman writes about in Thinking Fast and Slow. In
Kahneman’s model, system one is automatic and unconscious, like bottom-up processing, and system
two is effortful and conscious, like top-down processing. Kahneman argues that most of our decisions
are made by system one without our awareness, and we are simply under the illusion that system two,
our conscious thinking mind, is in control.)

Open Awareness Versus Selective Attention

Bottom-up and top-down processing produce different states of attention. Goleman highlights two such
states, open awareness and selective attention, each of which our brain uses in different contexts
toward different goals. Your mind passes back and forth between these different attention states during
the day depending on what is happening inside and around you and what you aim to accomplish.

(Shortform note: Goleman’s choice to spotlight these two states of attention is unique for several
reasons: a) They are far from being the only types, and b) open awareness is not a term often used in
cognitive science—it’s more closely associated with meditation teachings. In centering these two states,
Goleman is making a case for what he believes are the most consequential types of attention and
blurring the line between science and contemplative traditions.)
Open Awareness

Open Awareness is a state of fluid, passive attention where you are not focusing on one specific thing or
task. Instead, you allow your thoughts to drift—what Goleman calls mind-wandering. He also defines
open awareness as when your attention expands and is receptive to everything in the present moment.

(Shortform note: Outside the book, the term open awareness does not typically encompass mind-
wandering, but Goleman discusses them in tandem. Open awareness is generally associated with an
expansive, receptive state of attention, and mind-wandering is often positioned as a disruptive state of
mind. However, some researchers have explored the similarities and links between the two states,
proposing that receptive, expansive attention and mind-wandering are not opposed, but are two leaves
of the same branch. What they share in common is a mind free of specific tasks. From this perspective,
Goleman’s choice to discuss mind-wandering as a form of open awareness makes sense.)

Being in a state of open awareness can spark enormous creativity and sudden flashes of insight. These
flashes may feel like they come from nowhere because open awareness uses elements of bottom-up
processing—unique connections are made unconsciously before emerging into your awareness.

(Shortform note: Neuroscience isn't the only field noting the connection between open awareness and
creative insight—philosophers have long argued that an unoccupied mind is the key to creativity, and
that to attain creative insight, we must clear a silent space in our minds and our environment.)

Goleman highlights mind-wandering as your brain’s “default mode.” When you aren’t deliberately
focusing on one thing, your mind naturally drifts from topic to topic. In modern life, we tend to value
focused, directed, hard-working attention over mind-wandering. But Goleman stresses that mind-
wandering is a natural and important process that benefits our lives by facilitating self-reflection and
problem-solving. It allows your attention to sort through personal concerns, dilemmas, the past, future
possibilities, plans, and regrets.

(Shortform note: In Mindwandering, Moshe Bar agrees that mind-wandering has many benefits and
goes further to explain why it supports things like creative problem-solving. According to Bar, when we
reflect on memories or consider how a hypothetical scenario might unfold, our brains process this
information in the same way as a real experience. Just as our past experiences influence our future
decisions and perspectives, these mental simulations can have a similar impact.)

On the downside, mind-wandering carries our attention away from the present moment—we make
more errors, cause more accidents, and comprehend less in this state of mind. And mind-wandering can
also encompass an adverse mental state of rumination—the turning over and over of troubling thoughts
—which decreases your quality of life and disrupts focus.

(Shortform note: In one of his other books, Emotional Intelligence, Goleman elaborates on rumination
and worry, saying these thoughts are a rehearsal that our mind does of worst-case scenarios and how
we might deal with them. Worry can turn into anxiety, which hijacks our emotions and attention. He
advocates not only for managing anxiety with relaxation techniques like breathing or exercise, which
calm the body, but also by challenging our ruminating thoughts with questions that can deflate the
distressing emotion behind them.)
To enter states of open awareness, you need time and space free of interruptions, like during a long
commute, doing the dishes alone, or relaxing on the porch. Goleman asserts that, although you can
practice expansive, receptive states of open awareness with meditation, you cannot force mind-
wandering—you must take a wandering mind when it comes.

(Shortform note: Behavioral and cognitive experts say you can encourage mind-wandering by creating a
space and time where you don’t feel pressure to focus on anything in particular and can avoid
multitasking and distractions. They recommend putting down your phone and doing something
repetitive with your hands, like coloring books or weeding in the garden. Chris Bailey suggests doing
enjoyable activities that don’t require much focused concentration, like taking a walk on a nice day or
cleaning the house (if you like cleaning, that is).)

Selective Attention

Selective attention is a type of effortful attention you use to filter through the flood of sensory stimuli
and narrow your focus on what is relevant. Just as the name suggests, selective attention helps your
brain select what is relevant to pay attention to, and choose where you direct your attention. With
robust selective attention you can:

 Focus your attention on one task or piece of information and ignore distractions.

 Move your attention from one thing to another, and then keep your focus on that new thing.

 Bypass emotional distractions and stay centered during stressful times.

 Drop distressing or repetitive thoughts when they occur and direct your focus away from what is
worrying you.

These abilities are important because they help you engage meaningfully with tasks and allow agency
over when and where you put your mind to use. Without selective attention, our brains would be
overwhelmed with information and it would be difficult to make sense of the world around us.

How Selective Attention Works

The abilities Goleman identifies above all reflect the ability to deliberately choose where to direct our
attention. He isn’t explicit about what exact cognitive processes allow for selective attention, but there
are two major models that explain how it works.

In both models, your brain automatically picks up on certain features of something, like its color, shape,
or sound. If the stimulus is important or relevant to you, it gets "tagged" as something that needs your
attention and deeper cognitive processing. Then, depending on the model, your brain either completely
blocks unimportant stimuli or "turns down the volume" on it so that only important stimuli get through
to further processing centers.

Working to develop selective attention skills—which you can do because it involves top-down
processing—will support you in having greater productivity, willpower, and better mental health. It’s
also an important component of practicing meditation, one of the main methods of improving your
attention that Goleman recommends.
(Shortform note: Goleman discusses the benefits of selective attention, but in The Art of Thinking
Clearly, Rolf Dobelli presents a counterpoint—our ability to narrow our focus can cause us to miss
important details He argues that when we concentrate on select things, we dismiss and ignore
information around us that may still be relevant. An experiment called the “Invisible Gorilla” illustrated
this phenomenon: In the experiment, participants were instructed to focus on specific details of a
basketball game. Most people completely missed the giant “gorilla” walking onto the court during the
game because their selective attention was so actively engaged.)

The Three Directions of Attention

Goleman outlines three main directions you can aim your attention: inward, toward others, and
outward. These three directions of attention represent three sets of attention skills that can support you
in every significant aspect of your life and help you reach your full potential. These skills are self-
awareness and willpower (Inner), empathy and social awareness (Other), and systems awareness
(Outer).

(Shortform note: You can think of each of the three directions as levels that build on one another.
Without developing the inner focus skill of self-awareness and paying attention to how you feel, for
example, it would be challenging to meaningfully focus on others with empathy and pay attention to
how they feel.)

He writes that when you've mastered the attention skills necessary for each of these directions, you'll
master emotional intelligence (a combination of self-awareness, empathy, and social skills), which, he
argues, underpins all successful relationships.

How Strong Attention Skills Can Build Emotional Intelligence

Goleman goes into more detail about emotional intelligence in his book Emotional Intelligence. He
defines it as the ability to understand and manage our own emotions and the emotions of others. He
outlines five components of emotional intelligence, each of which relies on some aspect of attention.
The five main components of emotional intelligence are:

 Knowing your emotions, which requires self-awareness.

 Managing your emotions, which requires selective attention skills.

 Recognizing emotions in others, which requires empathy and social awareness.

 Motivating yourself, which requires self-awareness and willpower.

 Handling your relationships, which requires self-awareness, empathy, and sometimes systems
awareness when your relationships are embedded within a team or organization.

Inner Focus

The first direction of attention we’ll explore is inward—tuning in to yourself. Goleman highlights two
essential life skills that inner focus can help you develop: self-awareness and willpower.
Self-awareness

Goleman writes that developing an awareness of your physical and emotional sensations and accurately
interpreting them is key to forming a strong sense of “self” and living a meaningful, healthy life. When
you have keen self-awareness, you can:

 Live a life directed by your values and purpose. We first become aware of our purpose and
values because of emotional signals our body sends our minds.

 Follow your gut. Physical and emotional sensations are intuitions about the world our bodies
send us, which we must first notice to understand.

 Pay attention to attention itself. Meta-awareness is being aware of our mental states, which
helps us monitor ourselves and adjust our behavior accordingly.

 Accurately perceive how others perceive you. How we think others perceive us deeply affects
our sense of self. Having a good understanding of how other people see us helps us work well in
a team environment.

Trauma Makes Self-Awareness Difficult

Developing an ongoing, strong awareness of your physical and emotional sensations is, for some, not as
easy as simply deciding to pay more attention to how you feel. In The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van
der Kolk explains that people who have experienced trauma in their lives are more likely to feel
disconnected from their bodies and struggle to have an awareness of their physical and emotional
sensations. Therefore, trauma survivors may have a difficult time with the following:

Living a life directed by their values and purpose. Van der Kolk agrees with Goleman that recognizing
sensations in your body forms the foundation of your sense of self. With this ability diminished, trauma
survivors may feel disconnected from what they want, enjoy, and value.

Following their guts and having meta-awareness. Because trauma survivors are often in a state of fight-
flight-or-freeze, they unconsciously repress their physical and emotional sensations and do not trust
anything they can feel. This numbness can make it difficult to “hear” what your gut is telling you. It can
also be challenging to notice your state of mind when your attention is always on alert for threats in
your environment.

Accurately perceive how others view them. Because trauma can make people’s nervous systems
sensitive and reactive, survivors often struggle to accurately interpret whether someone's intentions are
positive or threatening. Accurately perceiving how others view you requires a grounded self-awareness
and an ability to interpret the subtle feedback that people may give you.

Willpower

Goleman stresses that our willpower may be the most important factor in determining the quality of our
lives. Goleman cites several influential studies that show robust self-control in children predicts positive
life outcomes, including in school, health, and financial stability.

(Shortform note: Goleman’s claim about the enormously positive influence of willpower in our lives may
be outdated. For a long time, experts touted this idea, backed up by major studies such as the well-
known Dunedin study conducted in the 1970s, which Goleman leans on heavily to support the claim.
There has, however, been pushback from researchers taking a closer look. Methods for testing self-
control have improved since the ‘70s, when several of the major willpower studies were conducted, and
the new science suggests that it’s not those who are able to exert more self-control who achieve more
in life but those who experience less temptation in the first place.)

Willpower is the ability to control your impulses and resist instant gratification in favor of long-term,
delayed happiness. This inner resource is primarily about how you control your attention and is mostly
driven by a top-down process where your conscious cognition overcomes your subconscious urges.
People who can resist the strong pull of instant gratification do so with three techniques:

1. They shift their focus away from the object of their desire.

2. They focus on something else to keep their attention off the desired object (for example, they
might mull over a conversation they had that morning—anything to keep their thoughts
averted).

3. They keep their longer-term goal in mind.

These techniques are a part of what Goleman calls executive control, which includes the selective
attention skills of shifting your focus and keeping it locked in on something new. According to Goleman,
the executive control skills that drive your willpower are tied to genetic factors. However, like most
things, executive control is influenced by our environments and experiences, and they can be developed
and strengthened through tactics we will cover later in the guide.

Is the Power of Willpower a Myth?

Goleman uses the term executive control but doesn’t define it explicitly. It’s a mental process that helps
you do more than just instinctively react to things happening around you, but instead lets
you choose how to act.

Recent research on self-control is casting doubt on the simplistic idea that our innate executive control
abilities determine our ability to break our focus away from temptations, focus on other things, or keep
our long-term goals in mind. Instead, other factors may be driving self-controlled behavior, like routine
and habit. People who exhibit self-control structure their lives in a way that minimizes the need for self-
control decisions in the first place. This is not due to an increased amount of willpower but rather
because routines and habits make it easier to stick to goals.

Focus on the Other

The second direction of attention is focusing on others. According to Goleman, effective focus toward
others will improve empathy and social awareness—two key life skills.
Empathy

Empathy is tuning in to others and feeling as they feel, which is a crucial skill in social connection.
Goleman points out that you can’t feel what another person is feeling if you aren’t paying attention to
them. He describes three kinds of empathy: emotional empathy, cognitive empathy, and empathic
concern.

Emotional empathy is when you personally feel the emotions another person or group of people are
feeling. Bottom-up processing helps with this, allowing you to pay attention to subtle information, like
nonverbal cues and tone of voice, that clue us into their emotions.

(Shortform note: Emotional empathy is a good example of how the skills of each direction of attention
build on one another. If you lack self-awareness and can’t detect or interpret what you’re feeling, you’ll
struggle to pick up on what someone else is feeling because your body is also the instrument that
detects emotional information from others. Researchers on empathy assert that the first step to
empathizing with another person is to have self-awareness and empathy for yourself.)

Cognitive empathy is a top-down orientation to what other people are experiencing. It allows you to
understand their thoughts, feelings, and state of mind but not to personally feel what they’re going
through. This lets you tap into top-down cognitive skills like problem-solving, which can be especially
useful in situations when someone needs your help and you must stay clear-headed and calm to do so.

(Shortform note: People on the Autism spectrum are often stereotyped for lacking the ability to
empathize. Experts point out that people with Autism do not struggle with emotional empathy—they
feel their own feelings and those of others very deeply. But they can struggle with cognitive
empathy. Trying to read another’s body language and facial expressions and accurately interpret their
emotional meaning can be challenging for people with Autism.)

Empathic concern is related to compassion. It is a blend of bottom-up and top-down processes that help
us feel and evaluate. It allows us to go beyond merely understanding what another person is going
through and instead moves us to help them.

(Shortform note: Goleman’s choice to separate empathic concern from emotional and cognitive
empathy is confusing since emotional and cognitive empathy produce emotions and impulses to
respond to others. It’s hard to imagine feeling or understanding someone’s distress and not feeling
motivated to engage with them in a supportive way. Therefore, Goleman may have intended to present
empathic concern as a natural outcome of empathy rather than a separate variety.)

Empathy doesn’t always come naturally to everyone or in all situations. The good news is most people
can improve empathy with practice. Goleman discusses one way to practice—fake it till you make it.
Suppose you don’t feel empathetic toward someone but want to be. In that case, practice “behavioral
empathy,” where you perform the actions of empathy, like looking people in the eye and mirroring their
body language. Likely, the feeling of empathy will follow.

(Shortform note: In Nonviolent Communication, Marshall Rosenberg explains that having and expressing
empathy for others can be challenging if you are emotionally or physically exhausted or have strong
feelings about the situation that the other person is dealing with. If you are in the right headspace to be
empathetic towards someone else, you can practice empathic listening in which you give your full
attention to what the other person is saying (verbally and nonverbally) and refrain from trying to come
up with the “right” answer, argue with them, or “fix” the situation.)

Social Awareness

When we turn our beam of attention on others, we pick up on body language and social cues that help
us interact socially with others.

Paying attention to body language helps us navigate social situations, understand what others are
feeling and expressing, and read between the lines of communication. The cognitive process of
understanding the unsaid is largely bottom-up—unconscious and automatic. But the skill can be learned
and developed with practice.

Social intuition is how good you are at collecting and making sense of nonverbal information from
people and then using that information to modify your behavior. This skill helps you navigate group
dynamics and “fit in” to groups like school cohorts or at a new job. Social intuition is a largely bottom-up,
instinctual process. People who have chronic problems with social intuition may come off as rude, say
inappropriate things, and violate social norms.

(Shortform note: Skills in reading body language and skills in social intuition are related: Mastery of
either one will help with mastery of the other, and both are dependent on having strong self-awareness.
In Quiet, Susan Cain calls these skills self-monitoring. She explains that people who are good at self-
monitoring do two things: they notice social cues from others, and they notice how their behavior can
change to blend in with what those cues say about the group.)
Outer Focus

The last direction of attention is outer focus. With outer focus, you direct your beam of attention to
large circles of influence and connection—the systems in which you live. Goleman writes that to address
large-scale issues that humanity and the planet face, like inequality and the climate crisis, we must
collectively master this direction of attention, which he calls systems awareness.

Our lives are embedded in many systems, large and small. A system is a set of patterns and rules—they
include natural systems like ecological and biological systems and human-made systems like economies,
governments, and families.

(Shortform note: While Goleman’s definition of a system as a set of cohesive patterns is not incorrect, it
may be more useful to think about what is interacting in a cohesive, patterned way to create the system.
In Thinking in Systems, Donella Meadows explains that systems are composed of three things: the
individuals in the system, the relationships between the individuals, and their collective purpose or
goal.)

To achieve systems awareness, you have to detect and map the patterns of a system by using data and
information from external sources and make analyses. Recognizing patterns takes top-down mental
cognition and therefore requires more effort and comes less naturally than feeling empathy or reading
body language. To attain systems awareness, your attention must be agile and capable of zooming in
and out to see details and the bigger picture. Then, you must be able to make sense of that information.

Concrete Steps to Systems Awareness

Meadows agrees with Goleman that systems are challenging to understand, and she lays out
some concrete steps you can take to understand a complex system:

 Observe. Gather data and information from individuals inside the system, research the history of
the system, and aim to observe what is working well in the system and what isn’t.

 Don’t ignore qualitative data. In human-made systems, elements such as emotion, motivation,
and hope are factors that should not be ignored simply because they are subjective.

 Widen your focus. We tend to focus on the short-term rather than the long-term, but systems
play out over long periods of time. If your lens is too narrow, you may miss important
information about the system.

 Put it down on paper. Writing or drawing your system can help you visualize and understand the
relationships within it.

How Attention Affects Our Lives

Goleman spotlights two major life areas where our deployment of attention is particularly impactful—in
leadership and in addressing the climate crisis.

Attention and Leadership

Goleman argues that attention skills are particularly necessary in leadership positions, and everyone is a
leader in some capacity, whether we’re parents, teachers, social media influencers, activists, or leaders
in our professions.
The author writes how good leaders effectively use all three directions of attention:

Inner Focus: Self-awareness is required to assess your own strengths and weaknesses, which in turn
helps you manage your impact on the team, the organization, and society at large. With strong self-
awareness, you can stay connected to your intuition to make big organizational decisions.

Focus on the Other: Empathy is required to effectively communicate strategies to the team and listen
attentively. Goleman describes how good leaders have the ability to zoom in on one person’s feelings or
zoom out to read the room. This helps you understand group dynamics and sense the direction of your
team’s energy and attention.

Outer Focus: Without systems awareness, leaders may attempt to solve a problem without
understanding the larger picture and therefore misdiagnose the problem. A leader without systems
awareness might also focus on short-term solutions for short-term gain, which can be detrimental long-
term. Goleman argues good leaders understand what to focus on and ignore and can perceive emerging
patterns and trends.

(Shortform note: As you may recall, emotional intelligence is comprised of self-awareness, empathy,
social awareness, and managing relationships. In another Goleman book, Primal Leadership, he and his
coauthors argue that emotional intelligence is a crucial trait for successful leaders to cultivate. Here,
Goleman is essentially making the same case for emotional intelligence’s powerful role in leadership
while developing systems awareness as an additional key trait of successful and effective leaders.)

Attention and Climate Change

Goleman draws a connection between our attention skills and the climate crisis. He argues the crisis
facing our planet now is partially due to the challenges it poses to our attention and that effectively
addressing the crisis will require us to develop systems awareness and long-view, future-oriented
attention.

The climate crisis challenges our individual and collective attention abilities because long-range threats
like the climate crisis do not produce the physiological and emotional responses in our bodies that result
in active attention, fear, and action. Therefore, there are different responses to the crisis depending on
where you live. Many people face real threats to their survival, which motivates them to demand more
attention be paid to the climate crisis than those who live in less affected parts of the world.

(Shortform note: For developed and wealthy nations like the United States, the climate crisis may not
feel like an urgent threat to our lives and livelihoods because many of the most dramatic environmental
changes, like rising ocean levels, will not impact us as greatly or as swiftly as poorer island nations such
as the Maldives. But even so, our physical proximity to the damage of environmental changes is not the
only factor influencing our level of concern about the crisis. Research shows that your gender, your age,
and your politics also predict your level of concern.)

Paying attention to the crisis is also difficult because it is upsetting and overwhelming. Our attention
naturally gravitates away from negative, frightening, shameful things and toward what feels safe and
manageable.

(Shortform note: In many cases, people may find it difficult to engage with overwhelming, frightening,
and shameful situations. But this idea contradicts what psychology calls the “negativity bias,” which
contends that we tend to pay more attention to negative stimuli than positive or neutral ones. This bias
is thought to be a fundamental aspect of our psychology and may have evolved to help us survive by
being more sensitive to potential dangers. However, some researchers have argued that this bias is not
universal and may be influenced by cultural and individual differences.)

Troubleshooting Attention

In this section, we will look at the ways Goleman says you can improve your attention—by strengthening
it with training and restoring it when it’s fatigued. We’ll start by exploring what weakens and disrupts
our attention.

What Disrupts Attention?

Goleman outlines two main ways in which your attention can be disrupted: distraction and attention
fatigue.

Distraction

If you live in modern society, the demands on your attention are at an all-time high. Distractions are
waiting for us at every turn.

(Shortform note: What makes something a distraction or not? Bailey defines distraction as anything that
pulls you away from your intended purpose or task. Understood this way, anything can become a
distraction if it diverts your attention away from what you want or need to be focusing on.)

Goleman outlines two main types of distractions:

 Emotional, in which emotion takes center stage and interrupts our attention. The stronger the
emotion, the greater the disruption it has on our focus. Goleman stresses that emotions are a
potent source of distraction.

 Sensory, in which a physical sensation inside our bodies, like pain, or something from the
outside environment, like a loud noise, commands our attention. Goleman spotlights how
modern technology, especially our personal devices, are a relentless source of sensory
distraction and can lead to addictive relationships with digital technology.

Internal Sensations Cause External Distraction

In Indistractable, Nir Eyal provides a different take on distraction—he argues that distressing internal
emotional and sensory experiences (like loneliness or pain, for example) are not merely distractions,
they are the reason why you become distracted by external things. He explains that external
distractions, like the ones digital technology provide for us in abundance, are essentially avenues we use
to escape internal physical and emotional discomfort. Without the internal trigger of discomfort, your
attention would not be driven to escape into something else like your Twitter mentions or binge-
watching television. To be able to resist being derailed by external distractions, you first have to take
steps to understand and address the internal emotional and physical sensations driving your
distractibility.
When distractions interrupt our attention, they decrease our ability to use selective attention skills by
pulling our focus away. They also interrupt states of open awareness by narrowing our attention to
immediate concerns like pain or relationship problems.

(Shortform note: Distractions have this effect on both selective attention and open awareness because
of one of the fundamental characteristics of attention: It is finite and indivisible. Bailey explains that this
is due to the limited capacity of our working memory.)

The costs of distraction include a tendency to miss important information, poorer learning
comprehension, less capacity for empathy, and diminished productivity and performance. Children
growing up in our era of technological distraction may be especially at risk for attention problems, such
as the inability to complete tasks, follow the logic or arc of a story, or tap into their creativity.

(Shortform note: Goleman focuses on the negative consequences of distraction, but some psychologists
note that distraction can have positive benefits, as well. For instance, it can be a tool for coping with
mental health challenges and can help you avoid harmful behaviors that might be triggered by intense
emotions. It can also help you better manage and cope with difficult feelings over time. Of course, these
benefits must be weighed against the harm that distractions might bring to mental health—all the
consequences Goleman discusses above can negatively impact mental well-being by disrupting
relationships and impeding success.)

Goleman notes that our modern era of relentless distractions and information overload is driving some
people to self-medicate in an attempt to improve their focus at school and work.

(Shortform note: Self-medicating for improving your focus can lead to substance misuse and addiction.
Sometimes, people even seek prescription stimulants such as Adderall for non-medical reasons and may
attempt to obtain a prescription by pretending to have or exaggerating symptoms of ADHD. This is called
"doctor shopping," and it is considered a form of prescription drug abuse. If you or someone you know is
struggling with substance abuse or addiction, it is important to seek help from a qualified healthcare
professional. There are many resources available to help individuals overcome these struggles, including
counseling and support groups.)

Attention Fatigue

Attention gets fatigued, just like a muscle, writes Goleman. Attention fatigue can occur when our brains
are exposed to a prolonged or demanding task that requires sustained focus. Distractions, interruptions,
sleep deprivation, and stress can also bring about or exacerbate it. When attention fatigue occurs, it
becomes more difficult to maintain focus on a task and to process information effectively.

Your attention might need restoration if you notice a decrease in your ability to complete tasks
effectively and comprehend what you're learning, an increase in how distractable you are, or if you’re
feeling irritable and impatient.

(Shortform: The symptoms of attention fatigue are also signs of burnout—a state of physical, emotional,
and mental exhaustion that can result from chronic stress, often work-related. Overworking yourself,
not getting enough sleep, and not managing stress well contribute to both attention fatigue and
burnout.)

How to Train Attention

You can strengthen your self-awareness, willpower, social awareness, and systems awareness by
improving your selective attention skills. Attention training exercises help build connections between
neurons; the more neural connectivity you have, the stronger your attention.

(Shortform note: Attention is thought to rely on the communication and coordination between different
brain regions, and having more connections between these regions may facilitate this communication
and coordination. Repeated activation of the neurons, or nerve cells over time, like in attention training
exercises, can lead to the formation of new connections or the strengthening of existing ones. The more
neurons communicate with one another this way, the stronger the bond between them becomes, which
may play a role in your attentional abilities.)

Goleman focuses primarily on two training activities: digital games and meditation.

Digital Games

Goleman notes that while video games are typically regarded as distractions, they can also play a role in
training your brain for attention skills. Research has shown that games can improve certain cognitive
and attention skills, such as visual attention, object tracking, speed of processing information, switching
attention from one thing to another, and increased memory capacity.

Goleman writes that some games are better than others at training your brain for useful attention
skills. Targeted games are designed to train specific aspects of attention, like ignoring distractions and
resisting impulses. Such games are better for strengthening skills you use in your daily life, as opposed to
commercial video games, which might train your brain in, for example, object tracking, which is less
useful in the real world.

(Shortform note: Lumosity and NeuroNation are a few examples of targeted games. Importantly, many
of these games are marketed for adults, and if you hope to use digital games to support growth in your
child’s attention skills, you should try to find ones that they actually find enjoyable to play. It’s also
important to note that video games should be used in moderation, as excessive screen time can
negatively impact overall health and well-being.)

Meditation

Goleman also recommends meditation as a powerful way to train and improve your attention. Goleman
focuses on mindfulness meditation, which he describes as a practice of paying attention to our thoughts,
letting them go, and directing our attention back to the present moment. In doing so, you can develop
the capacity to sustain your attention in the here and now without getting swept away by wandering
thoughts, ruminations, or outside distractions.

(Shortform note: The book doesn’t clearly explain that mindfulness is a state of sustained and relaxed
awareness and that meditation is a method you can use to achieve mindfulness. Goleman conflates the
two, but it is important to know that you can practice mindfulness anytime while doing anything, and
meditation is a powerful tool to cultivate a mindful state of mind.)

Goleman writes that mindfulness develops the capacity of your selective attention through the practice
of directing your attention from one thing to another, staying with the new object of focus, and ignoring
distractions. Other positive effects include greater self-awareness and empathy and stronger meta-
awareness, which helps you monitor your own thoughts and get back on task.
(Shortform note: In addition to improving selective attention (as it is defined outside of the
book), mindfulness can improve your capacity for sustained attention— the ability to sustain your focus
on one thing for extended periods of time. It can also strengthen your attentional control—your ability
to switch your attention between different tasks or stimuli, which can be useful in situations that require
task-switching or adapting to changing demands.)

To develop this capacity, you can practice meditation by focusing your attention on your breath or on
your sensory experience (for example, focusing only on the sounds you are hearing or the sensations
you feel on your skin). Goleman contends that improvements can be seen in as little as twenty minutes a
day for four days, but the more consistently you practice, the better your results will be.

(Shortform note: Meditation isn’t the only way you can monitor your thoughts and get back on track.
Bailey outlines a method of tracking your attention and developing greater meta-awareness through
setting what he calls an “hourly awareness chime.” With this method, you set an alarm that repeats
throughout the day as a reminder to come back to the present moment and check where your attention
is.)
How to Restore Attention

Just as your body needs time to rest and recover from strenuous physical exertion, your attention needs
restoration after it becomes fatigued. To do this, Goleman recommends switching from effortful top-
down activities to restful bottom-up activities. Note that not all bottom-up activities refresh our
attention, especially overstimulating ones mediated by technology, like scrolling mindlessly through
social media. The author recommends we unplug from our screens often and engage our attention in
one of two ways—in restful states of open awareness or in states of relaxed, focused attention.

(Shortform note: Goleman’s recommendation to switch from top-down to bottom-up activities is

confusing because, at the same time, he advises that some top-down activities are also restful, as long as
they involve a relaxed state of focus. Reading between the lines, it is not that top-down activities tax
your attention and bottom-up activities restore it, rather, the restorative nature of an activity largely
depends on your personality, preferences, and state of mind while you’re doing them. It is a matter
of how you do them, your intention, and how the activity makes you feel. For example, if you are
extroverted, socializing with friends may restore your attention, while for introverted people, socializing
will further drain their energy.)

Immersing yourself in nature, even for a short time, is a powerful and simple way to enter states of
restful open awareness. Researchers have found spending time in natural environments restores our
attention by initiating bottom-up attention in an environment free from an overwhelming amount of
distractions. In this environment, we can allow our attention to wander in a relaxed way that replenishes
the strength of top-down, focused attention.

(Shortform note: Research not only supports nature’s restorative properties for your attention, but
there is also extensive scientific evidence that nature is restorative and healing for your physical body
and your emotional well-being, too. For example, Shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, is a Japanese form of
nature-based therapy that has been shown to have powerful positive effects on human physiology.)

To restore your attention, Goleman also recommends getting fully lost in pleasurable activities, as these
focus your attention in a relaxed manner and engage all of your senses. Cooking, eating a home-cooked
meal, martial arts, and dancing could be such activities for you.

(Shortform note: One thing that these sorts of relaxed, focused activities have in common, but Goleman
doesn’t explicitly name, is that they all engage your body and senses in a mindful way. Activities that are
physical like running, or sensorial, like cooking a meal, can be done with your attention focused on other
things, like worries about the future. The key is that you stay in the present moment and adopt a
mindful awareness while you do these activities, which further supports the point that the restorative
properties of activities depend primarily on how you do them and the intention behind them.