Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: rapt focus, attentional style, remembering self, William James, University of Michigan, Central Park (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Exclusive: Winifred Gallagher on Rapt

A wise research psychiatrist once told me that he had identified life's greatest problem: How to balance self and others, or your need for independence with your need for relationship? Since writing Rapt, I've come to believe that we now face a fundamental psychological challenge of a different sort: How to balance your need to know—for the first time in history, fed by a bottomless spring of electronic information, from e-mail to Wikipedia--with your need to be? To think your thoughts, enjoy your companions, and do your work (to say nothing of staring into a fire or gazing dreamily at the sky) without interruption from beeps, vibrations, and flashing lights? Or perhaps worse, from the nagging sense that when you're off the grid, you're somehow missing out?

Science's new understanding of attention can help shape your answers to this question, which pops up all day long in various forms. When you sit at your computer, will you focus on writing that report or aimless web browsing? At the meeting, will you attend to the speaker or to your BlackBerry? Research suggests that your choices are more consequential than you may suspect. When you zero in on a sight or sound, thought or feeling, your brain spotlights and depicts that "target," which then becomes part of the subjective mental construct that you nonetheless confidently call "reality" or "the world." In contrast, things that you ignore don't, at least with anything like the same clarity. As William James succinctly puts it, "My experience is what I agree to attend to."

The realization that your life—indeed, yourself--largely consists of the physical objects and mental subjects that you've focused on, from e-bay bargains to world peace, becomes even more sobering when you consider that, as the expression "pay attention" suggests, like your money, your concentration is a finite resource. How can you get the highest experiential return for this cognitive capital? By focusing on some screen or on playing your guitar? On IM-ing your old friend or joining her for a walk?

Considering the Internet's countless temptations and distractions, deciding how best to invest your time and attention when you're online is particularly challenging. Left to its own devices, your involuntary, "bottom-up" attention system asks, "What's the most obvious, compelling thing to zero in on here? That e-mail prompt? This colorful ad?" Fortunately, evolution has also equipped you with a voluntary, "top-down" attention system that poses a different question: "What do you want to focus on right now? Ordering that new novel, then checking the weather report, then getting back to work, right?" Sometimes, it's fun to just wander around online, allowing your mind to be captured by random, bottom-up distractions. In general, however, it's far more productive to focus on top-down targets you've selected to create the kind of experience you want to invite.

Along with making clear choices about what things merit your precious attention online, there are some other simple ways to protect the quality of your daily life from technological interference. Remember that your electronics are your servants, not your masters, and don't let them choose your focus for you. Abandon vain attempts to "multitask," because when you try to attend to two things at once—phoning while checking e-mail—you're simply switching rapidly between them, which takes longer and generates more errors. When you need to concentrate on an important activity, try to work for 90 minutes without interruptions, because rebooting your brain can take up to 20 minutes.

Most important, as you go about the day, bear in mind that by taking charge of your attention, you improve your experience, increase your concentration, and lift your spirits. Best of all, enjoying the rapt state of being completely absorbed, whether by a website or a sunset, a project or a person, simply makes life worth living. We cannot always be happy, but we can almost always be focused, which is as close as we can get.

From Publishers Weekly

Gallagher (The Power of Place, Working on God) couples personal ruminations and interviews with experts to explore the role of attention in defining consciousness, identity and the human experience: "who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love-is the sum of what you focus on." From paying attention to your inner dialogue (helping eliminate negative thought patterns) to bucking the myths of multi-tasking (says cognitive scientist David Meyer, "Einstein didn't invent the theory of relativity while multi-tasking at the Swiss patent office"), Gallagher draws practical conclusions from her examination of conscious ("top-down") and unconscious ("bottom-up") attention strategies. Though her claims to "a psychological version of... physicist's 'grand universal theory'" are a bit outsized, Gallagher takes illuminating forays into the evolution of the species and the global diaspora, looking for instance at how "Western individualism" emphasizes top-down focus while the Asian mentality encourages a broader, contextual perspective. A fascinating psycho-social look at human motivation and the power of focus, Gallagher's latest is worth paying attention to.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The (April 16, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594202109
• ISBN-13: 978-1594202100
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #9,557 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

112 of 124 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Skillfully Manage Your Attention For Success. Exceptional book exploring the relationship between attention, focus, and success, May 3, 2009

By	Dave Lakhani "BoldApproach.com" (Boise, ID United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I like this book because it makes the neuroscience understandable and applicable. I enjoy books that are based on hard science backed by examples and stories that bring it home at the layman's level.

I found this book fascinating on many fronts. It takes a deep look at how what we focus on tends to be more of what we get and goes in depth on adaptive focus.

The two chapters I found most interesting were the chapters on work and productivity and Nurture: This is your brain on attention.

The author makes a strong argument about the superficial amount of focus children give due to technology overwhelm. Where hours of focused practice made for successful mastery of subjects, today's youth (and increasingly, many adults) are unable to focus long enough to complete tasks requiring intellectual rigor or deep thought. Or in the words of the author: "when you're finally forced to confront intellectually demanding situations in high school or college, you may find that you've traded depth of knowledge for breadth and stunted your capacity for serious thought."

In a time of information overwhelm, this is the one book that everyone should read, thoroughly.

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting review of attention, May 26, 2009

By	L. B. Kacir "ADHD specialist" (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I purchased RAPT after hearing an excerpt on NPR. I am a physician who specializes in ADHD and was curious to find out what a layperson would publish about paying attention. I found the book readable and a good balance of anecdotes and data from psychological research. The information on ADHD was about 5 to 10 years out of date, but not grossly inaccurate. It is a good summary of the spiritual value of a mindful life including hard science support for the author's intuitive points.

40 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Average, June 14, 2009

By	Ben Hill (Reston, VA) - See all my reviews

If you haven't read anything on the subject of attention this review may not be for you.

Otherwise, if you have read Kahneman and Csikszentmihalyi, the last being very accessible, then this book would be repetitive and not as good as the material she references.

The above combined with the lack of compelling story telling, see Gladwell, and detailed practical advice, see Brain Rules, are the reasons for my three star review.

Not to sound harsh, if you have read nothing on the subject, then book is a good gentle introduction to the subject.