419. Extend Your Attention Span with Gloria Mark

Mar 16, 2023

Gloria Mark is a Chancellor’s Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. She’s been a visiting senior researcher at Microsoft Research since 2012 and is a recipient of the Google Research Award and the NSF Career award.

She’s the author of the new book, Attention Span: Finding Focus for a Fulfilling Life, which unpacks how our brains operate in the digital world, why we can’t focus, and how we can take back control to find more success in our careers but also more health and wellness in our lives.

We unpacked myriad topics, including:

• The anatomy of attention

• The forces of distraction

• Attentional states and how focused attention differs from flow

• Why our attentional resources diminish over the course of a day

• Night owls v early birds

• Task switching

• The nature of digital agency

• Managing our attentional rhythms

• What organizations, leaders, and individuals can do to reclaim attention spans

• And so much more.

Show notes:

1. www.gloriamark.com

2. Attention Span book: https://www.amazon.com/Attention-Span-Finding-Fighting-Distraction/dp/1335449418