This is an issue of The Wonder Reader, a magazine in which our editors recommend a set of stories to pique your curiosity and delight you. Register here get it every saturday morning.
When author David Epstein had to get stitches in his head and was told to slow down for a few days, he expected to feel annoyed. But instead, after three days of following the doctors’ orders, he noticed that he felt happy. “I started tracking what I was doing in the journal to see if I could figure out what was going on,” Epstein recalls in a recent essay. “My conclusion: it wasn’t so much what I was doing as what I wasn’t doing.”
“Whether I was reading, working on my computer, or brushing my teeth, I was ‘single-tasking,’ focusing on one thing at a time,” Epstein writes. “Not being able to move quickly or turn my head had the effect of forcing me to focus… I think the discomfort even helped: If I started multitasking, I could feel pain and irritation around the stitches. It was like suddenly I had some kind of multitasking device implanted in my skin.” It shouldn’t take a medical condition to push this type of concentration, Epstein notes. But his experience was a reminder that work, especially the creative kind, needs boundaries. Only within those limits can we have a chance to think and explore freely, he says. Today’s post explores how to resist the temptation to multitask and find direction when the going gets tough.
On Focus
The Secret To Success Is ‘Monotasking’
By David Epstein
In a world full of distractions, getting your brain to focus on one thing at a time takes some serious action.
Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books
By Rose Horowitch
To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school. (From 2024)
Seven Books That Will Make You Put Down Your Phone
By Bekah Waalkes
These titles aim to grab the attention of their readers. (From 2023)
Still Curious?
Other detours
PS
I recently asked readers to share a photo of something that makes them wonder in the world. Norma J. posted this photo of a “Chicken of the Woods I discovered in my backyard” in Montague, Massachusetts.
I will continue to focus on your responses in the coming weeks.
— Isabel
