Focus & Attention
Single-tasking, in practice
A simple prescription that almost nobody follows, and the obstacles are practical rather than motivational.
Focus & Attention
Deep work, distraction, and what actually restores concentration.
Focus & Attention
Noise, music and working in shared space
Speech is the specific problem rather than volume, which explains why open offices are worse than building sites and why some music helps.
Focus & Attention
Attention and anxiety
Worry consumes the same capacity that concentration requires, which is why anxious people struggle with tasks they are entirely capable of.
Focus & Attention
Reading well in an environment designed against it
Sustained reading is a habit that has to be defended, and the defences are more practical than moral.
Focus & Attention
Working memory is the actual constraint
The number of things you can hold in mind at once is small and fixed, and most productivity advice is really about not exceeding it.
Focus & Attention
Context switching between roles, not just tasks
Moving between work and home, manager and maker, is a switch with a cost that nobody schedules for.
Focus & Attention
The morning is not magic, but it is quiet
The advantage of early work is mostly the absence of interruption, which means it is available at other times if you can arrange the absence.
Focus & Attention
Boredom, and why it might be useful
The gaps that used to be empty are now filled, and there is a reasonable case that something was lost in the exchange.
Focus & Attention
Reading, retention and the illusion of learning
The study techniques that feel most effective are consistently the least effective, and the ones that work feel like failure.
Focus & Attention
Notifications, phones and the attention economy
The products are designed by people with far more resources than you have, which is worth knowing before deciding that the problem is your discipline.
Focus & Attention
Multitasking, and what it actually costs
The brain does not run two demanding tasks at once. It alternates, and the alternation is where the cost sits.
Focus & Attention
What actually restores attention
Concentration is depletable and recoverable, and the activities that recover it are not the ones people reach for.
Focus & Attention
Deep work is a schedule problem before it is a discipline problem
Most people who cannot concentrate have not failed to concentrate. They have never been given an uninterrupted hour.