Rested

I’m listening to Cal Newport on Innovation Hub about getting long-form concentration back.

While I know I spent a lot of time on screen, I did also spend a lot of time offline, and not checking for stuff, just taking pictures. And all day at Aquatica, I didn’t even take my phone in, and didn’t miss anything.

So yesterday on the trip home, where we had about 6 hours worth of layovers and I had plenty of time to just screw around on my phone, I hit a point where I just didn’t want to. On the plane rides I read a good chunk of the New Yorkers I came with, which is a change, since I’ve really slacked off on reading of any kind lately.

One of the things I read about was Roomful of Teeth, a choral vocal group that sounded up my alley. I listened to a bit of their first album this morning (until the kid asked me to turn it off because it was too weird), and overall it felt like the kind of music I hoped someone was out there making.

Actually sitting listening to music in a focused way, not as background, is a good long-form thing to do to restore attention.

I guess background context here is needed because it occurs to me I have not put this in the blog, but I have been working on getting my attention back from my phone addiction (the one everybody else is complaining about too). I took the FB app off my phone earlier this month (though I decided to put it back on for vacation, and now it’s back off).

I’m also trying to do things to keep vacation mind going a while, so writing here is part of that.