FROM THE EDITOR
A big mug of freshly brewed coffee, a pair of over-ear headphones and the remixed version of Radiohead’s The King of Limbs album (named TKOL RMX 1234567, if you’re curious) – this is my formula for finding focus.
For me, coffee is like brain juice. It’s magic. I don’t even think it’s the caffeine; it’s the ritual of making the hot drink that seems to notify my brain it’s time to get to work. The headphones work like a pair of blinkers, not just shutting out the world, but telling it not to distract me. And the music, electronic and sparse in lyrics, seems to scratch the part of my brain that gets an itch to check out whatever interesting stuff might be going on in the rest of the world.
This is wholly unscientific, of course, but it works for me and it’s never been more vital. I couldn’t tell you whether my attention span has gotten worse (it was never very good to begin with), but it’s clear that there are more distractions than ever before. I’m not just talking about the advent of the pinging, look-at-me-now smartphone notification either. Offices, the very place where we’re supposed to get stuff done, seem to be designed to make it impossible to actually get anything done. Open-plan, noisy and full of people who insist on interrupting what you’re doing (I’m one of them) with their own work, they seem to be the antithesis of what I need to be productive. Meanwhile email, messaging apps and video calls give colleagues more ways than ever of disturbing you. It never ends.
So, if like me you’re always on the lookout for ways to help you wean yourself off distractions and keep your focus fixed firmly on the things you need to get done, head to p68.
Daniel Bennett, Editor
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