Like most people I’ve always had a little Attention Deficit problem and found myself staring off in to space and half a conversation has gone by without me paying any attention at all.
I snap myself back in to the present moment and pick up the
thread again.
It usually happens with I’m bored, or under pressure, or when I am awake.
I remember my attention drifting off in science and nature
class once when I was nine. I’d decided that as a city girl I didn’t need to be able
to classify trees based solely on its leaves.
In all reality I think I remember saying “this is stupid,
there are no trees, I’m not doing it” so my little mind wandered into the
void of nothingness.
I know a few Buddhists who would be very jealous if they
weren’t Buddhists of my ability to consider nothing for a few minutes.
Sound becomes muffled and far away, light softens and
diffuses, and when I hear and feel my heart beat I am mesmerised for a period
of time.
I heard Professor/Dr Robert Winston who is a very famous
Doctor in the UK and who pioneered the “test tube baby” fertility treatment -
once explain that in the developmental milestones of babies and young children,
the quiet moments where they are staring out to space and focussed on nothing
are the precise moment that neural pathways and connections are being laid down
in the brain. It’s perfectly fine to let that happen and not interrupt their
inactive activity or seek their attention, just let them be for a moment.
That’s lovely for babies.
I, however, am a grown woman.
So now when something threatens my concentration, I have a plan.
I have a A5 size distraction notebook and a pack of sticky notes.
Whenever I feel the sirens call of drifting off topic, I grab a sticky pad, scribble my thoughts, stick it in the
book and knowing it is safe and captured, I get back on task.
Then at a more opportune moment I review the scribbles on
the sticky notes and get to choose which are actually important or urgent or
potentially entertaining.
Sometimes when I review those half captured thoughts it is
inspiring and thought provoking, and other times I say to myself “why did you
think that this, of all things, was important, Woman!”.
The idea that the floating thoughts are captured on sticky
notes somehow tells my little brain that they’re still portable, not
permanently tethered to somewhere they ought not to be, and I can relax that
the idea is still floating around out there in the world but I don’t have to
fret over it right now.
It works for me, frees up my attention to stay on task, and
gives me a little peace of mind when I cannot get to that idea or important
action right away. I guess we all have
our coping strategies for times when we are about to stray off track, but this
is the one that works for me right now.
The current notepad is almost full, it is burgeoning with off topic
ideas, and todays offering are “chairs, floor tiles, passport signatures”,
three things that can wait.
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