5 Ideas You Should Know from: Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life by Winifred Gallagher
/The 5 Big Ideas:
Attention allows us to live a meaningful life
Focus is now a superpower
Our culture and environments loves to tell us what we should focus on, what we should believe, and what we should do. We need to ignore culture and decide for ourselves what makes us fulfilled
The way to grow is to push yourself to the edge. It’s not always comfortable but it’s the only path
Satisfice. For many decisions, good enough works. For your core passions, you can be more deliberate. But you can devote lots of time to everything. Pick a few key areas where you focus your time and automate everything else
My Highlights From the Book:
Attention allows us to live a meaningful life
Paying rapt attention increases your capacity for concentration lifts your spirits but more importantly it simply makes you feel that life is worth living. We must resist the temptation to drift along reacting to whatever happens to us next, and deliberately select targets from activities to relationships that are worthy of our finite supplies of time and attention.
Focus is now a superpower
One of life’s challenges is to make you maintain your focus despite the continual distracting emotional stimuli that can capture it.
Our culture and environments loves to tell us what we should focus on, what we should believe, and what we should do. We need to ignore culture and decide for ourselves what makes us fulfilled
You focus on what your culture tells you to focus on.
The way to grow is to push yourself to the edge. It’s not always comfortable but it’s the only path
Choose activities that she so close to the edge of your competence that they demand your absolute focus. If it’s too easy as focus and get bored. It’s too hard to become anxious overwhelmed and unable to concentrate. I achievers relish taking a risky projects that have only a 50-50 chance of success. Either attention or motivation can jumpstart flow, both of these major psychological processes must converge to sustain it.
Satisfice. For many decisions, good enough works. For your core passions, you can be more deliberate. But you can devote lots of time to everything. Pick a few key areas where you focus your time and automate everything else
The next time you face a choice rely on habit. Instead of fretting over which suitcase or cordless drill to buy by the same one that you bought last time. When in doubt lead a more knowledgeable friend choose for you. Don’t think by your cell phone or long-distance plan. Just call her a person can do what he or she says. The where the choice you made was the best, as long as it meets your needs. Good enough is almost always good enough.