SPLICED COLUMN /
WHILE WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT OF...
ISSUE 05
I have a short attention span. I can gleefully lose focus while losing
focus. Conversations digress through multiple looping tracks as I
bounce around making dinner whilst plotting global domination.
Often people have to reign me back in on any given topic that
requires a linear trajectory.
School reports cards came with the admonishment
of needing to ‘apply himself to the task at hand’
which is really a vaguely polite way of saying ‘your
kid needs to shut the f*ck up and just do his sums.’
Luckily I was raised by hippie-ish parents just shy of
the Ritalin generation; because otherwise I’d surely
have been branded with a scarlet A(DHD) and
been liberally medicated early on, banished to the
front of the class where my untangled brain could
sedately focus on one thing at a time. Irony is, had
I been born a few years later to pharmaceutically
trigger-happy folks, I’d be a lot less productive.
One simply needs to learn to harness the chi of
ADHD1 and embrace active procrastination.
We all do it. I’m doing it right now. The very act
writing this column is a silent protest of other
pressingly pertinent things that are required of my
time right this very moment. Come to think of it,
some of the greatest things I’ve accomplished have
been acts of brazen diversion. Mostly because even
though I’m a committed staller; I just can’t stand
the idea of wasting time. So, while actively avoiding
productivity of some kind, I’ll avert my attention
someplace else. Ordinarily, these ‘less productive’
sidetracks are treated as dirty little secrets, and
come standard with the acrid taste of shame. Losing
focus makes you a bad worker bee. It also makes
you human. It doesn’t mean you check Facebook
any less often, merely that you feel shameful while
doing it.
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else entirely. Diligently staring at the wall won’t
make that looming spreadsheet complete itself
any faster - yet embracing that a limited focus
is not based on a finite capacity, but a simple
disinterest in doing that right now liberates your
options. Necessity isn’t the mother of invention
– procrastination is. There are a constant slew of
things that need your attention. Urgently. Roll with
it. Some mornings you could sit with a gun to your
head and not be able to muster up the focus to open
Pandora’s inbox. It’s ok. Guiltlessly spend that extra
fifteen minutes your brain needs to sate its sudden
obsession with locally manufactured onesies. You’ll
save an hour in listless paper shuffling.
Thing is, in doing just this, I’ve become an
astoundingly productive person. More than when
I was methodically trying to work my way down a
list of prioritised necessities with neatly allocated
time-frames. Those only made for slow clocks and
menacing deadlines. True, top priorities get waylaid.
Sometimes for days. Somehow it all gets done
eventually, just not necessarily according to the
original plan - but when does anything worth doing
end up following the original plan?
1 I know I’m using the term loosely, but if registered psychologists
can use the term ADHD as a catch-all for a short attention span,
and dole out 200 million prescriptions a year so can I.
I say embrace it. Embrace your willingness to get
sidetracked. It’s tantamount to a mini getaway
for your nervous system. Wikipedia something
random. Find out how to make a soufflé. This
seemingly useless information all adds up in making
you a well-rounded human being. Suddenly, all the
energy spent lamenting the active avoidance gets
diverted into a flush of enthusiasm for something
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