The Best Books on Attention and Focus — What the Research Shows

Attention is the most valuable resource in the modern economy — which is precisely why so much of the modern economy is designed to extract it. Understanding how attention works and how to reclaim it is one of the most practically important projects available.

The Essential Reading

What each book establishes about attention

—Stolen Focus — Johann Hari: The most comprehensive account of the attention economy — how smartphones and social media are systematically degrading sustained attention capacity.
—Deep Work — Cal Newport: The most practically useful account of what sustained focused work requires and how to create conditions for it in a distracted environment.
—The Shallows — Nicholas Carr: How internet use physically reshapes the brain toward skimming and away from deep reading and sustained reflection.
—Attention and Effort — Daniel Kahneman: The early cognitive psychology of attention — what it is, how it is limited, and the dual-process account of voluntary and involuntary attention.
—The Distracted Mind — Gazzaley and Rosen: How the prefrontal cortex goal management interacts with the limbic system novelty-seeking in ways the digital environment systematically exploits.

What the Practice Builds

The attentional capacity — that transfers everywhere

Attention research documents two things simultaneously: the capacity for sustained voluntary attention is being degraded by environmental conditions that reward frequent switching; and the brain is plastic enough that this capacity can be rebuilt through specific practices.

The Infinitely Simple practice is direct training of the attentional network. The instruction is simple: direct attention to the body, and when it wanders — which it will — notice and return. Every return is a training repetition of the anterior cingulate cortex and prefrontal networks that govern sustained attention in every other context. The capacity built in five minutes of daily practice transfers directly to every domain that requires sustained voluntary attention.

Read the book

Infinitely Simple: The Foundation — nine chapters, first principles, no assumptions. The guided practice applies it to the brain and body. Free on YouTube.

The Books Free Guided Practice