Francesca Rudkin: How can we resuscitate our attention spans?

This week, I was reminded of the joy of creating something with my hands.  

It was nothing special, in fact they were very average, imperfect, lobsided.  

They took two and a half hours to make. It was, by some distance, the longest I focused on a single thing all week. 

I was at a ‘wheel throwing’ pottery class. Trying to get my clumsy hands to caress clay into the shape we were aiming for. I got comfortable with failure.  

All I thought about for two and half hours was that damn clay. I didn’t look at my phone, think about work, the rest of the day, or even the fact I was splattered in clay.  

It was awesome being caught up in the moment. But it brought something else into sharp relief - how terrible my attention span is for the rest of the week.  

I’m not a huge fan of New Years' resolutions (how are they going by the way?) but 2025 just may be the year I resuscitated my attention span.

According to Dr Gloria Mark, one of the world’s leading ‘attention span’ experts, I was experiencing flow -  a state of deep engagement, total immersion in an activity. It’s a creative experience, with the reward coming from the doing rather than the result.

Flow is almost the complete opposite of what we experience in the digital world. Dr Mark’s research shows we spend an average of just 47 seconds on any screen before shifting our attention - she calls this kinetic attention. 

You can blame social media, the internet, email, the way apps are designed to manipulate our brains, but it’s still on each of us to decide how we behave online - we’re as distracted we let ourselves be.  

The more we flick between screens, the more we multi-task, the busier we are, the more we deplete our attention capacity and executive functioning. We're exhausting ourselves.

In her book Attention Span: Finding Focus for a Fulfilling Life, Dr Mark has a huge amount of information on all this. To summarise, if you want to reduce stress and tiredness, she suggests taking breaks to exercise or do a cross word, designing your day around it so you do your hardest thinking when you’re most focused, and sticking to a daily goal. 

They’re all simply steps. But they do require conscious effort. Ironically, I followed none of them writing this editorial. Gosh it took forever.

I’m hoping that if I throw a little more clay this year the flow will spread to other areas of my life. 

So do you have something in your life that totally absorbs you, and it work beautifully to provide fulfilment? Or have you decided this was the year of working on your attention span? How’s it going? Maybe you’ve put down the phone - or put restrictions on your device use. How easy has that been?  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks atb SO.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
This week, I was reminded of the joy of creating
something with my hands. It was nothing special. In fact,
they were very average, imperfect, lopsided. They took two and
a half hours to make. It was by some distance,
the longest I focused on a single thing all week.

(00:33):
I was at a wheel throwing pottery class, trying to
get my clumsy hands to caress clay into the shape
we were aiming for. I got comfortable with failure, although
for about two and a half hours all I thought
about was that damn clay, and I didn't look at
my phone, think about work the rest of the day,

(00:57):
or even the fact that I was completely splattered in clay.
It was awesome being caught up in the moment, but
it brought something else into sharp relief, how terrible my
attention span is for the rest of the week. Now. Look,
I'm not a huge fan of New Year's resolutions, how
they going by the way, But twenty twenty five just

(01:18):
maybe the year I resuscitate my attention span. According to
doctor Gloria Mark, one of the world's leading attention span experts.
I was experiencing flow, so the state of deep engagement,
total emergent, and inactivity. It's a creative experience with the
reward coming from the doing rather than the result, which
was clearly obvious when you looked at the result. Flow

(01:42):
is almost the complete opposite of what we experience in
the digital world, and that's where we live most of
the time, isn't it. Dr Mark's research shows we spent
an average of just forty seven seconds on any screen
before shifting our attention. She calls this kinetic attention. Now. Look,
you can blame social media, the Internet, email, the way
apps are designed to manipulate our brains, but it's still

(02:03):
on us to decide how we behave online whereas distracted
as we let our sounds be, the more we flick
between screens, the more we multitask. Just generally in life,
the busier we are, the more we deplete our attention
capacity and executive functioning. We're just exhausting ourselves. In her book,

(02:23):
Attention Span, Finding Focus for a Fulfilling Life, Doctor Mark
is a huge amount of information on all of this,
but to summarize, if you want to reduce spress, and tiredness.
She suggests you take breaks to do things like exercise,
do a crossroad, do some knitting, design your day around
it so that you do your hardest thinking when you
personally are most focused, and stick to a daily goal
to help you get to not get distracted. There are

(02:44):
really simple steps, but they do require conscious effort. Ironically,
I followed none of them when writing this comic piece.
It took forever, but I am hoping that if I
throw a little more clay this year, the flow will
spread to other areas of my life.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
lived to News Talks it Be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio