Book notes 1: Stolen Focus by Johann Hari

Attention, mind wandering, and community

I don’t recall who told me about Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus. As a meditation coach, who mainly teaches about personal practices, some parts of the book got my back up. While he gives credit to healing practices, “…analyzed what happens to a person's focus if they engage in deliberately slow practices, like yoga, or tai chi, or meditation, as discovered in a broad range of scientific studies, and he has shown they improve your ability to pay attention by a significant amount.” Hari also points out that the solution is more than a personal practice. As individuals, we lost focus because some smart people built parts of our world (especially things on our phones) to make us do just that. So, the solution is changing the system and influencing policy.

But, he did share why so many people have low focus and what we can do about it.

How I read

I usually read two to three non-fiction books a week and one or two fiction books (depending on how long they are). I also listen to one audiobook weekly (usually six hours of walking). I did spend weeks listening to Fayne (it was 30 hours!) And before I get out of bed, I read a poem, spiritual text, or psalm.

I don’t make many notes when I read fiction unless a line or story structure sparks something in me.

I make lots of notes when I read non-fiction. I use Obsidian to take, label, and track notes when I read at my desk. Often, I’ll highlight a sentence or paragraph, tag it, and connect it to other ideas once I’ve finished the book. If I’m reading on the couch, porch, or outside, I’ll take pictures of whole pages or make notes on a small notecard.

I am shy about what I read. It’s because, in grade nine, a guy made fun of me for liking Stephen King. He and his friends had just found this vegan restaurant/political bookstore and were all into beatniks — so anything not like that was a joke.

So this isn’t a review of the book. The notes I took that influence my work and life may also be helpful for you.

“We think our inability to focus is a personal failing – a flaw in each one of us. It is not. This has been done to us – by powerful external forces. Our focus has been stolen.” (from the book PR people).

Here are my insights from reading Stolen Focus

Insight #1

The power of pre-commitment

""I had learned years before from social scientists that when it comes to beating any kind of destructive habit, one of the most effective tools we have is called "pre-commitment.""

Stolen Focus

This may not be new to you, but this was the first time I heard this phrase. While Hari digs into how we can influence and change policies and systems to support deeper focus, he gave up his phone and internet for three months as an experiment. He used pre-commitment to help himself by giving his phone to a friend and ensuring there was no way to hook up the internet at his rented place.

You can read more about pre-commitment here, including the history, consequences, and controversies.

How this idea influences me and how I coach:

ME: I do this with the morning reading practice I described above — I have poetry and spiritual books within arms reach of my bed, so I’m more likely to stick with it. I also map out my weekly workout routine on Sunday night, ensure I have charged my watch and earbuds on run days, lay out my running clothes at night, and share my goals with my exercise partner. I arrange my life so it’s easy to follow through. I know my future self can be lazy or give up when things aren’t set up & easy, so I use pre-commitment to encourage follow-through.

HOW I COACH: As a coach, I’m good at offering suggestions and asking, “Do you want a suggestion from me?” But, I don’t always talk with my client about when they’ll do the suggested activity. For example, the first step in my career coaching process is for clients to collect seven stories over seven days. I provide prompts for this. I give that assignment, and very busy people will come to the first meeting empty-handed or with old stories they didn’t gather using my process. If I take a few moments to ask when they’ll do the cards and what pre-commitment actions they’ll take, I bet I’ll hear deeper stories from them.

Insight #2

Why meditation is hard at first

Hari interviews Gloria Mark, who shared this wisdom;

“If you have spent long enough being interrupted in your daily life, you will start to interrupt yourself even when you are set free from all those external interruptions.”

Stolen Focus, 49

New meditators struggle with this one. They want to meditate because they heard it is good for them. But the internal interruptions will pop up once they sit, even if external distractions don’t exist.

How this idea influences me and how I coach:

ME: I know this already. The hardest part of learning to meditate was this exact thing. My mind kept saying, “This is boring,” or “I get this; I don’t need to keep sitting here.” I would give up before I got anywhere. This doesn’t happen as much on the cushion these days. But it happens when I am writing. I’ll get stuck on a sentence, and instead of staying on the page, I’ll wonder about other things, check my email, and lose momentum. I’m going to track when I am self-distracting myself and calling it. I can see myself saying, “You are the distraction.” and seeing how that goes.

HOW I COACH: I must remember to add this prompt when leading meditations. The first exercises that I teach are all about noting and labelling experiences. So I can remind students of this normal occurrence, how to spot it, and how to work with it. There are strategies to help them when this kind of wall appears.

Insight #3

The power of mind-wandering

I wrongly assumed a book on focus would not include mind-wandering. But it highlighted the benefits of mind-wandering as:

1. It helps you make sense of the world

2. It encourages you to make new connections between ideas

3. You get to mental time travel which prepares you for what’s next

In the book, Hari takes to doing daily walks, where he experiences mind-wandering. He does warn about how mind-wandering can become rumination if left unchecked.

How this idea influences me and how I coach:

ME: Right. Mind-wandering is good. From my experiences, I know I work out my best ideas when my mind wanders. This often happens when walking, looking at water, or working with my hands, like gardening. I know the depth of my mind wandering has changed since being a meditator. I spend way less time ruminating and running unuseful things in my mind. I’m getting good at hanging out in mind-space (where you mentally have visual and auditory thoughts). (If you want meditations on accessing mind space, I just uploaded two recordings to the meditation archive, which comes with paid subscription).

I purposely make time for mind-wandering because it is useful. I didn’t know specifically why it was useful before. This helps me stick with it.

HOW I COACH: My new-to-meditation clients often aim to have a calm or silent mind. They want to meditate, so they have no thoughts. I’m good at remembering to tell people that thoughts are natural and human, and we work with them as they arise. Mindfulness can help you detect the difference between mind wandering and rumination. In my coaching, I’ll encourage clients to leave time for mind wandering because that’s where the mindfulness work can pay off. I can use the three reasons above to encourage it. I can also repeat the importance of noting and labelling to help break apart ruminations.

Right now, when I teach mindfulness, the progression is like this:

1. Learn to detect and label active sensory experiences

2. Learn to detect and label restful sensory experiences

3. Learn to detect and label flow in every sensory category

4. Learn to nurture positive thoughts and visions intentionally

5. Learn how to contact spontaneity in your thoughts, body, and speech

6. Learn how to focus on the space instead of the content of the experiences

And then, we usually work on specific goals from there. The first technique is great for helping to break up rumination. And the sixth technique is great at how to create a space for mind-wandering. I can keep this in the back of my mind as I coach.

Insight #4

The fourth type of focus

Hari introduced a fourth type of focus, a stadium light.

The first three types you have likely heard of:

1. Spotlight (the immediate). Often this is what we pay attention to when we meditate. It is the task at hand.

2. Starlight (longer goals). The things you want to see happen in your life.

3. Daylight (how you know what you want to do). You learn this through reflection on yourself and your values. What is meaningful for you?

It sounds like getting good at spotlight focus gives you relief so that you can make space for the starlight and daylight focus.

“If you lose your daylight you don’t have mental space to create a story about who you are. You become obsessed with silly goals or dependent on simplistic signals from the outside like retweets”

Stolen Focus, 266

and

“You only find your starlight and your daylight if you have sustained periods of reflection, mind-wandering, and deep thoughts.”

Stolen Focus, 266

The fourth type of focus is what Hari calls a stadium light. He describes it as the ability to "see each other, to hear each other, and to work together to formulate and fight for collective goals.” (Hari, 267).

How this idea influences me and how I coach:

ME: When I read this, I went, “Aha — that’s what’s missing.” So much of running a business and growing my career is based on the three focuses — what do I want, what’s keeping me from what I want, and why do I want this for myself?

But, if you’re someone who, like me, achieves everything you set out to achieve, those don’t go deep enough.

The ultimate goal is to build a focus to include, listen, and work with others. It is exactly the final part of the happiness grid that I use as a training guide — the goal being the ability to derive deep fulfillment from helping others. See Shinzen’s Happiness Grid here. Something in Hari’s wording helped me see how important it is to work on your stadium light and emphasis it more.

Attuning to your stadium light takes a bunch of pressure off of you. Instead of the end goal of figuring yourself out fully, the bigger project can be, “Once I’ve developed my focus, I can use this to help others.” The "I am here to understand and help _____” goal might inspire you to take action. It moves all your marketing away from self-focused to an act of generosity.

HOW I COACH: It is rare that people are concerned about seeing and hearing others when they are in career transitions (unless to know the hiring people better or what makes people buy stuff). Often clients want clarity about improving their spotlight and figuring out the starlight and daylight. This is important. You can’t help others well without knowing your own awesome. But, I rarely bring in a worldview perspective when coaching. I have specific practices that nurture this and am eager to share these more.

Hari’s suggested plan:

At the end of the book, a suggested plan for getting your focus back was shared. Most of the suggestions are things I already do myself or with clients, except for taking six months off social media. In the Fall, I took three months off, but six sounds like a challenge. I appreciated that his last suggestion was to play. I know the benefits of that well.

All in all, I enjoyed reading Stolen Focus. It offered insights that improved my life and helped me help others better.

Have you read Stolen Fcous? What did you take away from it?