'A brilliant and engaging book . . . A must-read for anyone who feels their attention is not under their control' Professor Mark Williams, co-author of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World
THE ATTENTION PARADOX: THE HARDER YOU CHASE PERFECT FOCUS, THE MORE YOU UNDERMINE IT.
Perhaps you're a parent trying to balance the demands of work with being present for your children, or a student struggling to concentrate through long lectures. You might be a professional buried in emails and meetings, or simply someone who feels constantly distracted in an always-on world.
Whatever brought you here, you have probably blamed yourself for attention struggles that feel like personal failings. Much of what we have been told about attention is misleading, and the difficulties you experience are not a sign of laziness or a lack of discipline, because your brain is doing precisely what it evolved to do.
Dr Benjamin Sharpe is a cognitive scientist who studies attention whilst living with a restless brain of his own. In The Attention Paradox he explains why sustained focus was never meant to be constant, and why minds differ in how they attend. Some wander, some need movement and some work best amid a certain amount of chaos, and none of these patterns is a failure.
Drawing on cognitive science, neuroscience, years of research and his own experience, Ben sets aside popular productivity myths to explain how attention really works, why modern life fragments everyone's focus, and what you can realistically change.