Johann Hari:
“Next to me there were two men in, I guess, their mid-twenties. I shamelessly eavesdropped on their conversation while pretending to read David Copperfield. It was clear they had met on an app, and this was the first time they had seen each other in person.
There was something about their conversation that seemed odd to me, and I couldn’t place it at first. Then I realised they weren’t, in fact, having a conversation at all. What would happen is the first one, who was blond, would talk about himself for ten minutes or so. Then the second one, was dark-haired, would talk about himself for ten minutes. And they alternated in this way, interrupting each other. I sat next to them for two hours, and at no point did either of them ask the other person a question. At one point, the dark-haired man mentioned that his brother has died a month before. The blond didn’t even offer a cursory ‘I’m sorry to hear that’: he simply went back to talking about himself. I realised that if they had met up simply to read out their own Facebook status updates to each other in turn, there would have been absolutely no difference.
I felt like everywhere I went, I was surrounded by people who were broadcasting but not receiving. Narcissism, it occurred to me, is a corruption of attention – it’s where your attention becomes turned in only on yourself and your own ego.”
Non-Fiction Notes
Non-Fiction Notes
recent posts
about
-
-
I will study the book Clean Code by Robert C. Martin.
-
“questioning is an attentional mechanism. We can all harness this mechanism; we can all shift attention and influence thoughts, feelings and actions, just by asking questions. You can choose to intentionally use this ability, or not, and this choice will have an impact on everything from your professional achievements to your personal relationships.”
Lani Watson -
“The essence of Winifred Gallagher’s Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life is that the quality of your life depends to a surprising degree on what you choose to pay attention to. Gallagher’s central claim is not merely that attention improves productivity. It is much broader: your lived reality is largely constructed out of the things that repeatedly enter and occupy your attention. Two people can inhabit similar external circumstances yet experience very different lives because they habitually notice, dwell on, and mentally organize different things.
A second major idea is that attention is selective by necessity. You cannot take in everything, so every act of attention is also an act of exclusion. This means that focusing on one thing inevitably makes other things psychologically smaller. Gallagher therefore treats attention almost as a form of authorship: by deciding what deserves sustained mental presence, you are continuously shaping your subjective world. What you repeatedly attend to becomes emotionally and cognitively important; what you consistently ignore tends to fade from your experienced life.
The book also emphasizes that good attention is active rather than passive. Modern environments constantly compete for attention, and if you do not direct it deliberately, other people, media, worries, notifications, habits, and random stimuli will do the directing for you. Gallagher’s argument is therefore strongly connected to autonomy. A focused life is one in which you increasingly decide what will occupy your mind instead of simply reacting to whatever happens to be loudest, newest, or most emotionally provocative.
Another important point is that attention influences not just achievement, but well-being. Gallagher argues that people often assume happiness depends mainly on changing external circumstances. Yet a significant part of well-being comes from learning to place attention on meaningful activities, absorbing experiences, relationships, ideas, nature, work, or other domains that generate engagement. This connects closely to the psychological idea of flow: when attention is fully absorbed in something demanding and worthwhile, self-consciousness and diffuse worry recede.
The deepest takeaway from Rapt is therefore almost existential: your life is, in large part, the sum of what you attend to. Time alone does not determine a life’s richness; attention determines how fully that time is inhabited. Gallagher is essentially arguing that attention is one of the most important resources you possess because it determines what becomes vivid, meaningful, memorable, and formative. A focused life is not simply a more efficient life. It is a life in which you consciously decide what deserves to become part of you.”
-
I enjoy taking walks around the city where I grew up. Most of the time, I meet people I know on these walks and have a chat with them, or I talk to people I haven’t met before. It’s a nice way to deepen existing connections and develop new ones.
-
In most situations, we can either dream about a beautiful and deeply fulfilling future, or we can focus on the present and intentionally design the situation we are in right now. More often than not, it is a dysfunctional belief to aim exclusively for some distant ideal. Instead, it tends to be far more effective to cultivate a constant bias for action—to take meaningful steps, again and again.
Along the way, we should also take the time to savor our experiences and successes, while reflecting on the new insights generated by our actions, our experiences, and our successes—or even our failures. I particularly like the idea that savoring “is the essence of getting more out of (rather than cramming more into) your life” by “reengaging your experiences through a savoring reflection.”
In a nutshell, the suggested approach is simple: start with a bias for action—just do something. Then adopt the perspective of “good enough for now.” Over time, both a bias for action and the good enough for now mindset should become second nature.
By embracing these mindsets, you become “much more available … to other people and to the opportunities that will start showing up all around you.” That is because you are no longer sitting in the backseat of your own life, asking, “Are we there yet?”
-
“The most important insight from the first chapter “Are We There Yet?” is, in my opinion, the reframing technique: Instead of the dysfunctional belief “Good enough isn’t good enough; I want more,” you should switch to “Good enough is GREAT—for now.”
Why This Is So Central
The chapter addresses a widespread problem: Many people are stuck in a constant “Are we there yet?” mode. They wait for the perfect job, the next promotion, or the ideal situation — and in doing so, they miss the opportunity to find satisfaction in the here and now. This leads to chronic dissatisfaction, reinforced by the hedonic treadmill: People quickly adapt to positive changes and always want more, without ever truly arriving.
The authors Burnett and Evans (who also wrote Designing Your Life) use design thinking principles to show that you can’t always radically change your current work situation right away, but you can change your perspective on it. This isn’t superficial renaming (“rename”), but a real reframing that fundamentally shifts your attitude and actions.
Practical Examples and Implementation
- The book illustrates this with Garth: He had an unsatisfying job, but through small adjustments (e.g., conscious breaks and learning from colleagues), he made it more bearable while simultaneously preparing for better opportunities.
- Good-Enough-for-Now Mindset: Accept your current situation as a starting point for growth, rather than viewing it as a permanent state. This reduces stress and creates space for real improvements.
- Practical tools from the chapter: Keep a “Good Work Journal” (note daily what you learned, initiated, or helped others with), set small goals, and do weekly reflections (e.g., on the 7th day).
My Personal Assessment
This is not just a nice motivational phrase, but an extremely liberating and pragmatic introduction to the book. In a world where we are constantly bombarded with “more, better, faster,” it reminds us that satisfaction is an active choice — and the first step toward a more consciously designed work life. It lays the foundation for the later chapters (e.g., on Money vs. Meaning or concrete redesign strategies), because without this acceptance, everything else ends in frustration.
In short: Stop waiting to get “there” — start designing “here.” The chapter makes it clear that this is not resignation, but the smart starting point for change.“
-
“It’s dark because you’re trying too hard. Lightly, child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”
— Aldous Huxley
-
By spending just three to five hours deeply reading a single book each week, you can read roughly fifty books per year.
-
The next book review will be about Designing Your Work Life by Burnett and Evans.
Non-Fiction Notes 