“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”
The Gospel of Matthew, c. 80 AD · Christian scripture
Chapter 8
On Attention
“Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains. For it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself.”
Marcus Aurelius, c. 180 AD · Roman emperor and Stoic
“My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind.”
William James, 1890 · American psychologist and philosopher
Sampling the thoughts of more than two thousand people at random moments, researchers found minds wandering away from the task at hand almost half of all waking hours, and people were reliably less happy when they did.
Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert, 2010 · psychologists, Harvard University
Interrupted workers finished their tasks faster and no worse, but paid for it in stress, frustration, time pressure and effort.
Gloria Mark, Daniela Gudith and Ulrich Klocke, 2008 · informatics and psychology researchers, UC Irvine and Humboldt University
People who habitually juggled many streams of media at once turned out to be worse, not better, at filtering out what did not matter, both in the room and in their own memory.
Eyal Ophir, Clifford Nass and Anthony Wagner, 2009 · cognitive scientists, Stanford University
A walk among trees restored people's powers of concentration; the same length of walk through downtown streets did not. Nature holds the eye gently, and lets the focusing mind refill.
Marc Berman, John Jonides and Stephen Kaplan, 2008 · psychologists, University of Michigan
“Only that day dawns to which we are awake.”
Henry David Thoreau, 1854 · American naturalist at Walden Pond
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