I read a book recently, Stolen Focus, by Johann Hari, about our species’ growing inability to pay attention. “The average American college student today switches tasks every 65 seconds and the median amount of time they focus on any one thing is just 19 seconds,” he writes. There’s just too much going on, too much information to parse out, too many alerts and alarms, a million minor interruptions in a day. Our brains are not evolved to juggle them all.
One of the ways which Hari recommends combating this lack of focus seems, on its face, counter-intuitive: taking time to daydream. Of regularly setting aside five or ten minutes to let your mind wander. And a lot like dreaming during sleep, science tells us it’s important, though we really don’t know why.
What we do know is that daydreaming reduces our stress levels, helps us solve problems, expands our creativity, and engages diverse parts of our brain. In other words, if a problem is vexing you, the answer might be found when letting your mind wander, rather than focusing on how to solve it.
It's the second week of September. This month, I'll be sharing work on the theme of time. Today, I'm sharing one of my own short stories, "The Painted House."
Something I Heard is supported by Idaho Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
